Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 5 pp 6298—6329
Calorie restriction prevents age-related changes in the intestinal microbiota
- 1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
- 2 Genes and Human Diseases Research Program, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
- 3 Department of Physiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
- 4 University of Missouri Metagenomics Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
- 5 Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- 6 Department of Lab Medicine and Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- 7 Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
- 8 Oklahoma Center for Geoscience and Brain Aging, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
- 9 Oklahoma City VA Medical Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
- 10 Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA
Received: September 17, 2020 Accepted: February 19, 2021 Published: March 10, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202753How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Kurup et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The effect of calorie restriction (CR) on the microbiome, fecal metabolome, and colon transcriptome of adult and old male mice was compared. Life-long CR increased microbial diversity and the Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio and prevented the age-related changes in the microbiota, shifting it to a younger microbial and fecal metabolite profile in both C57BL/6JN and B6D2F1 mice. Old mice fed CR were enriched in the Rikenellaceae, S24-7 and Bacteroides families. The changes in the microbiome that occur with age and CR were initiated in the cecum and further modified in the colon. Short-term CR in adult mice had a minor effect on the microbiome but a major effect on the transcriptome of the colon mucosa. These data suggest that CR has a major impact on the physiological status of the gastrointestinal system, maintaining it in a more youthful state, which in turn could result in a more diverse and youthful microbiome.