The Association Between Fecal Short-Chain Fatty Acids, Gut Microbiota, and Visceral Fat in Monozygotic Twin Pairs.

PURPOSE

To examine the association of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), gut microbiota and obesity in individual twins and to control for genetic and shared environmental effects by studying monozygotic intrapair differences.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The study recruited 20 pairs of monozygotic twins. Body composition measurements were performed by using the multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance technique. SCFAs were extracted from feces and quantified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometer. Gut microbiota was evaluated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

RESULTS

Fecal SCFAs were negatively correlated with adiposity parameters including body mass index, visceral adipose tissue and waist circumference (all < 0.05). Metastat analysis showed that the top 5 relatively abundant bacterial taxa of viscerally obese and non-obese groups were , and . Participants with visceral obesity had lower abundance of and compared to non-obese patients ( < 0.05). Among them, the abundance of was positively correlated with acetic acid concentrations ( = 0.63, = 0.011). There were no significant intrapair differences in each SCFA concentrations between the twins in our study ( 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Low fecal concentrations of SCFAs were associated with visceral obesity, and the gut microbiota might be involved in the underlying mechanism.