Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, Safed, Israel.
Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Commun Biol. 2024 Jul 19;7(1):880. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-06470-5.
The role of hormones in gut-brain crosstalk is largely elusive, but recent research supports specific changes in hormone levels correlated with the gut microbiota. An interesting but unstudied area in microbial endocrinology is the interplay between the microbiota and sex hormones. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of testosterone and sex on the mouse gut microbiome. We use in vitro experiments to test direct effects of testosterone on bacteria in fecal samples collected from male and female mice pre- and post-puberty. Sex-specific microbial and metabolic differences surrounding puberty are also examined in vivo. We then explore effects of testosterone supplementation in vivo, characterizing microbiota and metabolomes of male and female mice. We detect sex-specific differences in microbiota and associated metabolites of mice post-puberty, but in vitro experiments reveal that testosterone only affects microbiota of fecal samples collected before puberty. Testosterone supplementation in vivo affects gut microbiota and metabolomes in both male and female mice. Taking our results from in vitro and in vivo experiments, we conclude that the shift in the microbiome after puberty is at least partially caused by the higher levels of sex hormones, mainly testosterone, in the host.
激素在肠脑交流中的作用在很大程度上难以捉摸，但最近的研究支持与肠道微生物群相关的特定激素水平变化。微生物内分泌学中一个有趣但尚未研究的领域是微生物群和性激素之间的相互作用。本研究旨在探讨睾酮和性别对小鼠肠道微生物组的影响。我们使用体外实验来测试睾酮对来自青春期前和青春期后雄性和雌性小鼠粪便样本中细菌的直接影响。还在体内研究了青春期前后微生物群和代谢物的性别特异性差异。然后，我们探索了体内睾酮补充的影响，描述了雄性和雌性小鼠的微生物群和代谢组。我们在青春期后检测到雌雄小鼠的微生物群和相关代谢物存在性别特异性差异，但体外实验表明，睾酮仅影响青春期前采集的粪便样本中的微生物群。体内睾酮补充会影响雄性和雌性小鼠的肠道微生物群和代谢组。综合我们的体外和体内实验结果，我们得出结论，青春期后微生物组的转变至少部分是由宿主中更高水平的性激素（主要是睾酮）引起的。
