Fermented purple potato dough improves glycolipid metabolism by modulating gut microbiota and fecal metabolites in high-fat diet-induced obese mice.

Obesity is one of the major global public health concerns. Purple potatoes exhibit anti-obesity properties attributable to their content of abundant polyphenols and amylose. However, the anti-obesity effects and underlying mechanisms of purple potato-based staple foods in vivo remain to be fully elucidated. Here, the anti-obesity effects and underlying mechanism of fermented purple potato dough (FD) were investigated in high-fat diet (HFD) -induced obese mice. The results showed that FD could reduce the body weight gain and improve the glucose tolerance and insulin resistance in HFD-induced obesity mice. FD effectively reduced the total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, and this reduction was accompanied by improved lipid homeostasis in hepatic and epididymal adipose tissues. Supplementation with FD effectively modified the gut microbiota to facilitate a protective effect in the colon, such as increasing the abundance of genera Colidextribacter, unidentifiedLachnospiraceae, Blautia, Ligilactobacillus, and Oscillibacter, and decreasing the abundance of genera Dubosiella and Faecalibaculum. Meanwhile, FD remarkably modulated the metabolites involved in glycerophospholipid metabolism, including elevated PE-NMe (15: 0/22: 0) and PE-NMe (15: 0/22: 6 (4Z, 7Z, 10Z, 13Z, 16Z, 19Z) ), thus further improving dyslipidemia. These findings elucidated that FD could be used as a promising foodstuff in a dietary strategy for alleviating obesity by regulating specific gut microbiota and fecal metabolites.