Modulatory Effects of Lactarius hatsudake on Obesity and Gut Microbiota in High-Fat Diet-Fed C57BL/6 Mice

Lactarius hatsudake (LH), a great wild endemic fungus, contains rich nutritional components with medicinal properties. The effects of LH on body weight, liver weight, liver injury, blood lipids, and gut microbiota in C57BL/6 mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks was examined in this research. Though there was no clear impact on weight loss, the findings indicate that LH treatment effectively decreased liver damage caused by HFD, as well as lowered serum total cholesterol, triacylglycerol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Additionally, it positively influenced gut microbiota to resemble that of mice on a normal diet. In HFD-fed mice, LH markedly boosted the levels of Parabacteroides, unclassified Muribaculaceae, Oscillibacter, and unclassified Oscillospiraceae, while reducing the abundance of Lachnospiraceae NK4A136 group and Erysipelatoclostridium, as well as the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes. Further analysis of correlation indicate a possible connection between obesity and gut microbiota. Obesity-related indices show a positive association with unclassified Eubacterium coprostanoligenes group, Blautia, and Erysipelatoclostridium, while displaying a negative correlation with unclassified Muribaculaceae, unclassified Clostridia vadinBB60 group, Helicobacter, Oscillibacter, unclassified Ruminococcaceae, Parabacteroides, and unclassified Oscillospiraceae. The results suggest that LH can help combat obesity and may have the potential to be utilized as a functional food.