Department of Toxicology, School of Public Health, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Department of Toxicology, School of Public Health, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Chemosphere. 2022 Mar;291(Pt 3):133135. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.133135. Epub 2021 Dec 1.
Environmental chemicals can affect the composition and metabolic functions of gut microbiota, leading to various diseases including obesity. The composition of gut microbiota is highly dynamic in the early stages of life. Increasing lines of evidence suggest the adverse effect of early onset chemical exposure on gut microbiota and adulthood body weight gain. Paraquat (PQ) is a widely used toxic herbicide. However, it remains unclear whether PQ can affect the gut microbiota, particularly exposed during early life stage and its link to obesity in adulthood. Here, we applied 16S rRNA gene sequencing to explore how the gut microbiota of adult mice changed after postnatal PQ exposure via intraperitoneal injection. In addition, the body weight of mice was monitored through adulthood. Our results showed that early-life PQ exposure increased the body weight and perturbed the gut microbiota of adult mice in a highly sex-specific manner. In males, early PQ exposure reduced gut microbiota diversity and altered the structure of gut microbiota in adulthood. Interestingly, these changes were not observed in females. Moreover, gene function prediction analysis implied that PQ-induced alteration of gut microbiota was highly correlated with body weight gain in male mice. Taken together, these results suggest that early-life PQ exposure can perturb the gut microbiota and result in increased body weight in adult male mice, which highlights the potential role of gut microbiota in the toxicity of early-life PQ exposure and its sex-specific effects.
环境化学物质会影响肠道微生物群落的组成和代谢功能，导致包括肥胖在内的各种疾病。肠道微生物群落的组成在生命早期阶段高度动态。越来越多的证据表明，早期化学物质暴露对肠道微生物群落和成年后体重增加有不良影响。百草枯（PQ）是一种广泛使用的有毒除草剂。然而，目前尚不清楚 PQ 是否会影响肠道微生物群落，特别是在生命早期阶段暴露时，以及其与成年肥胖的关系。在这里，我们应用 16S rRNA 基因测序来探索腹腔注射后 PQ 暴露如何改变成年小鼠的肠道微生物群落。此外，还通过成年期监测小鼠的体重。我们的结果表明，生命早期 PQ 暴露以高度性别特异性的方式增加了成年小鼠的体重并扰乱了其肠道微生物群落。在雄性中，早期 PQ 暴露会降低肠道微生物群落的多样性，并改变成年期肠道微生物群落的结构。有趣的是，这些变化在雌性中没有观察到。此外，基因功能预测分析表明，PQ 诱导的肠道微生物群落改变与雄性小鼠的体重增加高度相关。总之，这些结果表明，生命早期 PQ 暴露会扰乱肠道微生物群落，并导致成年雄性小鼠体重增加，这突出了肠道微生物群落在生命早期 PQ 暴露毒性及其性别特异性效应中的潜在作用。
