Yuanyuan Li, MD, PhD: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Objectives: Obesity is a global epidemic that impairs human life quality and is closely related to development of many chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, cabbage and kale are considered promising healthy food that can reduce the risk of various human diseases and disorders including obesity. Our preliminary studies found that early-life supplement with bioactive compound, glucoraphanin (GRN) from broccoli seeds, provided lifelong beneficial effects on prevention of high-fat diet induced obesity and the related metabolic disorders in mice. However, the underlying mechanisms related to GRN functions remain unclear. We investigated the potential mechanisms linking GRN-mediated beneficial effects to a crosstalk between the host gut microbiome, metabolome and subsequent gene responses.
Methods: We assessed the changes of microbial diversity and composition during different developmental stages by 16S rRNA sequencing analysis. Serum metabolites were evaluated to identify novel microbially-produced or diet-induced metabolites by targeted and untargeted metabolomics analysis through liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). We also evaluated transcriptomic profiling in liver to identify target gene expression in response to GRN treatment by RNA-sequencing analysis.
Results: We found broccoli GRN diet may influence early-life gut microbial development leading to an altered metabolome and subsequent key regulatory gene/signaling pathway changes that may contribute to its beneficial effects on prevention of HFD-induced obesity and metabolic disorders later in life.
Conclusions: Our study provided important mechanistic insights into broccoli supplement on prevention of over-nutrition induced obesity and its related metabolic disorders from early life.
