Research
| Title： | Variability in fecal metabolome depending on age, PFBS pollutant, and fecal transplantation in zebrafish: A non-invasive diagnosis of health |
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| First author： | Sun, Baili; Liu, Mengyuan; Tang, Lizhu; Zhou, Xiangzhen; Hu, Chenyan; Chen, Lianguo |
| Journal： | JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
| Years： | 2023 |
| DOI： | 10.1016/j.jes.2022.06.019 |
| Abstract： | To protect the wellbeing of research animals, certain non-invasive measures are in increas-ing need to facilitate an early diagnosis of health and toxicity. In this study, feces speci-men was collected from adult zebrafish to profile the metabolome fingerprint. Variability in fecal metabolite composition was also distinguished as a result of aging, perfluorobu-tanesulfonate (PFBS) toxicant, and fecal transplantation. The results showed that zebrafish feces was very rich in a diversity of metabolites that belonged to several major classes, in-cluding lipid, amino acid, carbohydrate, vitamin, steroid hormone, and neurotransmitter. Fecal metabolites had functional implications to multiple physiological activities, which were characterized by the enrichment of digestion, absorption, endocrine, and neurotrans-mission processes. The high richness and functional involvement of fecal metabolites pin-pointed feces as an abundant source of diagnostic markers. By comparison between young and aged zebrafish, fundamental modifications of fecal metabolomes were caused by aging progression, centering on the neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction pathway. Exposure of aged zebrafish to PFBS pollutant also significantly disrupted the metabolomic structure in feces. Of special concern were the changes in fecal hormone intermediates after PFBS expo-sure, which was concordant with the in vivo endocrine disrupting effects of PFBS. Further-more, it was intriguing that transplantation of young zebrafish feces efficiently mitigated the metabolic perturbation of PFBS in aged recipients, highlighting the health benefits of ther-apeutic strategies based on gut microbiota manipulation. In summary, the present study provides preliminary clues to evidence the non-invasive advantage of fecal metabolomics in the early diagnosis and prediction of physiology and toxicology. (c) 2022 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. |
