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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Food Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1554537
This article is part of the Research Topic The Interaction Between Food Ingredients and Gut Microbiome on Health and Disease View all 13 articles
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Obesity is increasingly becoming a challenge with China’s economic development. There is an urgent need to identify more affordable methods to combat this condition. Paederia scandens (PS), a cost-effective herbal remedy widely used in China for treating inflammation and pain, shows potential in this regard. To investigate its anti-obesity mechanisms, we established a high-fat diet (HFD) induced obesity model in mice. The obese mice subsequently received daily oral gavage of PS extract for 21 consecutive days. Upon completion of the experiment, blood samples were collected to analyze lipid profiles, including total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C). Abdominal adipose tissue was subjected to hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining for histological analysis, while fecal samples underwent 16S rRNA sequencing to assess gut microbiota composition. Our findings revealed that PS supplementation significantly reduced body weight, lipid metabolism biomarkers, and adipocyte size. PS treatment also restored gut microbial diversity, with 19 specific microbial taxa and 25 KEGG pathways identified as potential mediators of its anti-obesity effects. Notably, PS modulated key obesity-associated gut microbiota, including Alistipes, Lachnoclostridium, Odoribacter, Prevotellaceae UCG-001, Rikenellaceae RC9-gut group, and norank_g Bacteroidales S24-7 group. Serum metabolomics analysis implicated L-ascorbic acid, stevioside, allopurinol, and gingerol, along with amino acid and energy metabolism pathways, in the anti-obesity mechanism of PS. These results provide novel theoretical insights into the therapeutic potential of PS for obesity prevention and treatment.
Keywords: Paederia scandens, Obesity, high-fat induced, Microbes, Metabolites
Received: 02 Jan 2025; Accepted: 02 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Si, MO, LI, Pan, Pan, Jiang, Wang and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Decai Wang, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, 533000, Guangx, China
Xueping Feng, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise, 533000, Guangx, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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