Prebiotic effects in vitro of anthocyanins from the fruits of Lycium ruthenicum Murray on gut microbiota compositions of feces from healthy human and patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract Anthocyanins from the fruits of Lycium ruthenicum Murray (ACN) can be degraded by gut microbiota into metabolites and regulate the structure of gut microbiota. In order to investigate the prebiotic effect of ACN, the effects of ACN and its main monomer, petunidin 3-O-[rhamnopyranosyl-(trans-p-coumaroyl)]-5-O-[β- d -glucopyranoside] (P3G), on gut microbiota of feces from healthy volunteers and patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were investigated by fermentation in vitro in the present study. As results, it was found that the gut microbiota of IBD feces was disordered compared with healthy feces. ACN and P3G both could regulate the gut microbiota of healthy and IBD feces, including increasing the relative abundance of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, and decreasing the relative abundance of Escherichia/Shigella. While the positive effect of ACN was better than that of P3G in IBD fecal fermentation. What's more, the production of acetic, propionic and lactic acids was promoted by ACN and P3G in healthy fecal fermentation and only lactic acid was promoted by both ACN and P3G in IBD fecal fermentation. In short, they showed a similar effect to prebiotics on gut microbiota, and provided important theoretical support for the development of the fruits of L. ruthenicum as functional food ingredients.