Mesnage Robin, Panzacchi Simona, Bourne Emma, Mein Charles A, Perry Melissa J, Hu Jianzhong, Chen Jia, Mandrioli Daniele, Belpoggi Fiorella, Antoniou Michael N
Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, Gene Expression and Therapy Group, King's College London, Guy's Hospital, London, United Kingdom.
Ramazzini Institute, Bologna, Italy.
Front Microbiol. 2022 Oct 5;13:888853. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.888853. eCollection 2022.
The potential health consequences of glyphosate-induced gut microbiome alterations have become a matter of intense debate. As part of a multifaceted study investigating toxicity, carcinogenicity and multigenerational effects of glyphosate and its commercial herbicide formulations, we assessed changes in bacterial and fungal populations in the caecum microbiota of rats exposed prenatally until adulthood (13 weeks after weaning) to three doses of glyphosate (0.5, 5, 50 mg/kg body weight/day), or to the formulated herbicide products Roundup Bioflow and RangerPro at the same glyphosate-equivalent doses. Caecum bacterial microbiota were evaluated by 16S rRNA sequencing whilst the fungal population was determined by ITS2 amplicon sequencing. Results showed that both fungal and bacterial diversity were affected by the Roundup formulations in a dose-dependent manner, whilst glyphosate alone significantly altered only bacterial diversity. At taxa level, a reduction in Bacteroidota abundance, marked by alterations in the levels of and , was concomitant to increased levels of Firmicutes (e.g., , , ) and Actinobacteria (e.g., , or ) and also had their levels reduced by the pesticide treatments. Analysis of fungal composition indicated that the abundance of the rat gut commensal Ascomycota was reduced while the abundance of and were increased by exposure to the Roundup formulations, but not to glyphosate. Altogether, our data suggest that glyphosate and its Roundup RangerPro and Bioflow caused profound changes in caecum microbiome composition by affecting the fitness of major commensals, which in turn reduced competition and allowed opportunistic fungi to grow in the gut, in particular in animals exposed to the herbicide formulations. This further indicates that changes in gut microbiome composition might influence the long-term toxicity, carcinogenicity and multigenerational effects of glyphosate-based herbicides.
草甘膦引起的肠道微生物群改变对健康的潜在影响已成为激烈争论的焦点。作为一项多方面研究的一部分，该研究调查了草甘膦及其商业除草剂配方的毒性、致癌性和多代效应，我们评估了从产前到成年期（断奶后13周）暴露于三种剂量草甘膦（0.5、5、50毫克/千克体重/天）或相同草甘膦等效剂量的配方除草剂产品Roundup Bioflow和RangerPro的大鼠盲肠微生物群中细菌和真菌种群的变化。通过16S rRNA测序评估盲肠细菌微生物群，同时通过ITS2扩增子测序确定真菌种群。结果表明，Roundup配方以剂量依赖的方式影响真菌和细菌多样性，而单独的草甘膦仅显著改变细菌多样性。在分类水平上，拟杆菌门丰度的降低以[具体物种1]和[具体物种2]水平的改变为标志，同时厚壁菌门（如[具体物种3]、[具体物种4]、[具体物种5]）和放线菌门（如[具体物种6]、[具体物种7]或[具体物种8]）的水平增加，并且[具体物种9]的水平也因农药处理而降低。真菌组成分析表明，大鼠肠道共生子囊菌门[具体物种10]的丰度降低，而暴露于Roundup配方而非草甘膦会增加[具体物种11]和[具体物种12]的丰度。总之，我们的数据表明，草甘膦及其Roundup RangerPro和Bioflow通过影响主要共生菌的适应性，导致盲肠微生物群组成发生深刻变化，这反过来又减少了竞争并使机会性真菌在肠道中生长，特别是在暴露于除草剂配方的动物中。这进一步表明，肠道微生物群组成的变化可能会影响草甘膦基除草剂的长期毒性、致癌性和多代效应。
