Analyzing the gut microbiota and microbial-associated metabolites of tomato-based sauces.

Red Cooked Sauce (RCS) and Red Raw Sauce (RRS) are a mixture of natural crops that have a promising content of bioactive compounds (BC). The aim was to determine the effect of the indigestible fraction (IF) during the colonic fermentation in RCS and RRS by studying the two-way relationship between gut microbiota composition and microbial metabolites produced from BC fermented in the TNO in vitro dynamic model of the human colon (TIM-2). Total BC in undigested and predigested RRS, 957 and 715 mg/100 g DW, respectively, was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in the RCS, 571 and 406 mg/100 g DW, respectively. Catenibacterium and Holdemanella increased during RCS fermentation, while 13 genera showed a clear positive correlation with most microbial phenolic metabolites. Our findings suggest that the mechanisms, pathways, and enzymes involved in producing microbial metabolites exhibited uniqueness among bacterial taxa, even within shared genus/family classifications.