Dihydroquercetin supplement alleviates colonic inflammation potentially through improved gut microbiota community in mice.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of dietary dihydroquercetin (DHQ) supplementation on dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis in mice. Mice were given DHQ supplementation (3 g kg) throughout the study, starting 14 days prior to DSS treatment for 1 week followed by 2 days without DSS. The results showed that dietary DHQ supplementation restored DSS-induced disease activity index (DAI), colon length and histopathology scores of the colon tissue. Additionally, supplementation with DHQ reduced the pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, and enhanced the level of IL-10 in the serum. qPCR results indicated that DHQ supplementation significantly downregulated , , and , and upregulated gene mRNA expression. Western blot results proved that DHQ supplementation upregulated ZO-1 and occludin levels. Using amplicon sequencing technology, 16S rRNA sequencing results showed that DHQ supplementation increased the fecal / ratio and the relative abundance of and , and decreased the relative abundance of . Additionally, DHQ supplementation restored the decreased fecal acetic acid and butyric acid concentrations in DSS-induced colitis mice. Besides, Spearman's correlation analysis showed that was positively correlated with the butyric acid level and was positively correlated with the mRNA expression of and . Both and showed a negative correlation with the mRNA expression of , , and , and was positively correlated with . In summary, it was found that DHQ supplementation alleviated DSS-induced colitis which may be potentially associated with altered fecal microbiota communities in mice.