PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Cheng Fang
AU  - Hai Du
AU  - Zheng Xiaojiao
AU  - Aihua Zhao
AU  - Wei Jia
AU  - Yan Xu
TI  - Flavor compounds in fermented Chinese alcoholic beverage alter gut microbiota and attenuate ethanol-induced liver damages
AID  - 10.1101/437731
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 437731
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/08/437731.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/08/437731.full
AB  - Alcoholic beverages which are consumed widely in most parts of the world have long been identified as a major risk factor for all liver diseases, particularly alcohol-induced liver disease (ALD). Recent compositional analyses suggest that Chinese Baijiu (CB), a clear alcoholic liquid distilled from fermented grains, contains large amounts of small molecule bioactive compounds in addition to a significant amount of ethanol. Here, in an experimental mouse model, we show that CB caused lower degrees of liver injury than pure ethanol by protecting against the decrease of the relative abundance of Akkermansia and increased relative abundance of Prevotella in the gut thereby preventing the destruction of the intestinal barrier. Furthermore, we demonstrated that ethanol-induced alteration of the gut microbiota profoundly affected the host metabolome. Compared with ethanol feeding, CB feeding resulted in higher concentrations of functional saturated LCFAs and SCFAs. Our results provide supporting evidence that ALD was profoundly influenced by host-gut microbiota metabolic interactions and that small molecule organic compounds in CB could attenuate ALD.