Metabolism and Nutrition Research Group, Louvain Drug Research Institute, UCLouvain, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
Walloon Excellence in Life Sciences and BIOtechnology (WELBIO) department, WEL Research Institute (WELRI), avenue Pasteur, 6, 1300, Wavre, Belgium.
Microbiome. 2023 Apr 28;11(1):94. doi: 10.1186/s40168-023-01526-w.
Excessive hedonic consumption is one of the main drivers for weight gain. Identifying contributors of this dysregulation would help to tackle obesity. The gut microbiome is altered during obesity and regulates host metabolism including food intake.
By using fecal material transplantation (FMT) from lean or obese mice into recipient mice, we demonstrated that gut microbes play a role in the regulation of food reward (i.e., wanting and learning processes associated with hedonic food intake) and could be responsible for excessive motivation to obtain sucrose pellets and alterations in dopaminergic and opioid markers in reward-related brain areas. Through untargeted metabolomic approach, we identified the 3-(3'-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid (33HPP) as highly positively correlated with the motivation. By administrating 33HPP in mice, we revealed its effects on food reward.
Our data suggest that targeting the gut microbiota and its metabolites would be an interesting therapeutic strategy for compulsive eating, preventing inappropriate hedonic food intake. Video Abstract.
享乐性消费过度是体重增加的主要驱动因素之一。识别这种失调的原因有助于解决肥胖问题。肥胖过程中肠道微生物群会发生改变，并调节宿主代谢，包括食物摄入。
通过将瘦鼠或胖鼠的粪便物质移植（FMT）到受体鼠中，我们证明了肠道微生物在食物奖励的调节中发挥作用（即与享乐性食物摄入相关的想要和学习过程），并可能导致对获得蔗糖丸的过度动机以及奖励相关大脑区域中多巴胺能和阿片样物质标记物的改变。通过非靶向代谢组学方法，我们确定 3-(3'-羟基苯基）丙酸（33HPP）与动机高度正相关。通过在小鼠中给予 33HPP，我们揭示了它对食物奖励的影响。
我们的数据表明，靶向肠道微生物群及其代谢物将是治疗强迫性进食的一种有趣的治疗策略，可以预防不适当的享乐性食物摄入。
