Impact of Saskatoon berry powder on insulin resistance and relationship with intestinal microbiota in high fat-high sucrose diet-induced obese mice.

The present study examined the impact of Saskatoon berry powder (SBp) on insulin resistance, inflammation and intestinal microbiota in diet-induced obese mice. Male C57 BL/6 J mice were fed control diet, high fat-high sucrose (HFHS) diet or HFHS+5% SBp (HFHS+B) diet for 15 weeks. The composition of fecal bacterial community was characterized using the Illumina sequencing of V4 region of 16S rRNA gene. HFHS diet increased body weight, fasting plasma glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin, homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance, monocyte adhesion, tumor necrosis factor-α, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, monocyte chemotactic protein-1, intracellular cell adhesion molecule-1, urokinase plasminogen activator and its receptor in plasma or aortae compared to the control diet. HFHS+B diet postponed the increase in body weight, suppressed HFHS diet-induced disorders in the metabolic and inflammatory variables. The ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes in the HFHS group was higher than that in the control group (P<.01), and that in the HFHS+B group was lower than that in the HFHS group (P<.05). The abundances of S24-7 family negatively correlated with body weight and tested metabolic or inflammatory variables. The results suggest that SBp attenuated HFHS diet-induced metabolic disorders and vascular inflammation in gut microbiota in mice.