Berberine and its structural analogs have differing effects on functional profiles of individual gut microbiomes

Li, Leyuan, Chang, Lu, Zhang, Xu, Ning, Zhibin, Mayne, Janice, Ye, Yang, Stintzi, Alain, Liu, Jia and Figeys, Daniel (2020) Berberine and its structural analogs have differing effects on functional profiles of individual gut microbiomes. Gut Microbes, 11 (5). pp. 1348-1361. ISSN 1949-0976

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Abstract

The understanding of the effects of compounds on the gut microbiome is limited. In particular, it is unclear whether structurally similar compounds would have similar or distinct effects on the gut microbiome. Here, we selected berberine (BBR), an isoquinoline quaternary alkaloid, and 16 structural analogs and evaluated their effects on seven individual gut microbiomes cultured in vitro. The responses of the individual microbiomes were evaluated by metaproteomic profiles and by assessing butyrate production. We show that both interindividual differences and compound treatments significantly contributed to the variance of metaproteomic profiles. BBR and eight analogs led to changes in proteins involved in microbial defense and stress responses and enrichment of proteins from Verrucomicrobia, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes phyla. It also led to a decrease in proteins from the Firmicutes phylum and its Clostridiales order which correlated to decrease proteins involved in the butyrate production pathway and butyrate concentration. Three of the compounds, sanguinarine, chelerythrine, and ethoxysanguinarine, activated bacterial protective mechanisms, enriched Proteobacteria, increased opacity proteins, and markedly reduced butyrate production. Dihydroberberine had a similar function to BBR in enriching the Akkermansia genus. In addition, it showed less overall adverse impacts on the functionality of the gut microbiome, including a better maintenance of the butyrate level. Our study shows that ex vivo microbiome assay can assess differential regulating effects of compounds with subtle differences and reveals that compound analogs can have distinct effects on the microbiome.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Publisher Copyright: © 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	akkermansia,berberine,butyrate,functionality,gut microbiome,metaproteomics,microbiology,microbiology (medical),gastroenterology,infectious diseases ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2400/2404
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Metabolic Health
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2026 15:30
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2026 15:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102517
DOI:	10.1080/19490976.2020.1755413

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