Postbiotic potential of KMU01 cell-free supernatant for the alleviation of obesity in mice.

Attention toward the preventive effects of postbiotics on metabolic diseases has increased because of greater stability and safety over probiotics. However, studies regarding the bioactive effects of postbiotics, especially from probiotic strains, are relatively limited. The anti-obesity effects of the cell-free culture supernatant of KMU01 (CFS-) were evaluated using high-fat-diet (HFD)-induced mice. HFD-induced mice (n = 8 per group) received equal volumes of (1) CFS- (114 mg/kg) in PBS, (2) Xenical in PBS, or (3) PBS alone by oral gavage daily for 13 weeks. The results demonstrated that CFS- changed the gut microbiota and showed anti-obesity effects in HFD-induced obese mice. The elevated ratio induced by HFD was decreased in the CFS- group compared to the other groups ( < 0.05). The CFS- intervention led to the enrichment of SCFA-producers, such as and , in the cecum, suggesting their potential involvement in the amelioration of obesity. Due to these changes, the various obesity-related biomarkers (body weight, fat in tissue, white adipose tissue weight and size, serum LDL-cholesterol level, hepatic lipid accumulation, and adipogenesis/lipogenesis-related gene/protein expression) were improved. Our findings suggest that CFS- has potential as a novel anti-obesity agent through modulation of the gut microbiota.