BACKGROUND: Age-related hepatic metabolic dysfunction significantly impairs the health and productivity of laying hens. Puerarin (Pue), a natural isoflavone, exhibits diverse pharmacological activities relevant to liver and gut health. Our previous work demonstrated that dietary supplementation with Pue improved laying performance and egg quality, while reducing the feed conversion ratio in aged laying hens. Building on these findings, we employed an integrated multi-omics approach to investigate whether Pue exerts hepatoprotective effects by restoring gut-liver axis homeostasis, thereby supporting liver function and potentially extending the production performance of aged laying hens. RESULTS: Pue supplementation significantly ameliorated hepatic pathological changes, including vacuolar degeneration, lipid accumulation, fibrosis, and apoptosis. Additionally, Pue reduced malondialdehyde levels and enhanced the activities of total antioxidant capacity, glutathione peroxidase, and catalase in the liver. Transcriptomic and serum metabolomic analyses revealed that Pue upregulated CYP7B1 and downregulated CYP7A1, thereby altering bile acid profiles without affecting total bile acid levels. Molecular dynamics simulations further demonstrated that Pue exhibits a stronger binding affinity to CYP7B1 than to CYP7A1. Although Pue treatment did not significantly alter the α-diversity and β-diversity of the gut microbiota, it significantly increased the abundance of RikenellaceaeRC9gutgroup and enhanced butyric acid production, which in turn elevated the expression of intestinal tight junction proteins (Claudin-1 and Claudin-3). Multi-omics correlation analysis confirmed the regulatory network between the gut and liver. CONCLUSIONS: Pue enhances hepatic health in aged laying hens by modulating bile acid metabolism and altering gut microbiota composition, primarily through gut-liver axis regulation as revealed by integrated multi-omics analyses.
Du et al. (Fri,) studied this question.