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. 2024 Mar 4;13(5):792.
doi: 10.3390/foods13050792.

Microbial-Transferred Metabolites and Improvement of Biological Activities of Green Tea Catechins by Human Gut Microbiota

You Su  1 , Kaiyin Hu  1 , Daxiang Li  2 , Huimin Guo  2   3 , Li Sun  1   2 , Zhongwen Xie  2
Affiliations

Microbial-Transferred Metabolites and Improvement of Biological Activities of Green Tea Catechins by Human Gut Microbiota

You Su et al. Foods. .

Abstract

Green tea catechins (GTCs) are dietary polyphenols with broad bioactivities that undergo extensive microbial metabolism in the human gut. However, microbial-transferred metabolites and their health benefits are not fully understood. Herein, the microbial metabolism of GTCs by human fecal microbiota and dynamic alteration of the microbiota were integrally investigated via in vitro anaerobic fermentation. The results showed that the human gut microbiota exhibited a strong metabolic effect on GTCs via UHPLC-MS/MS analysis. A total of 35 microbial-transferred metabolites were identified, far more than were identified in previous studies. Among them, five metabolites, namely EGCG quinone, EGC quinone, ECG quinone, EC quinone, and mono-oxygenated EGCG, were identified for the first time in fermented GTCs with the human gut microbiota. Consequently, corresponding metabolic pathways were proposed. Notably, the antioxidant, α-amylase, and α-glucosidase inhibitory activities of the GTCs sample increased after fermentation compared to those of the initial unfermented sample. The results of the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that the GTCs significantly altered gut microbial diversity and enriched the abundancy of Eubacterium, Flavonifractor, etc., which may be further involved in the metabolisms of GTCs. Thus, these findings contribute to a better understanding of the interactions between GTCs and gut microbiota, as well as the health benefits of green tea consumption.

Keywords: UHPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS/MS; bioactivities; green tea catechins; human gut microbiota; in vitro fermentation; metabolites.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Microbial degradation pathways via which the human gut microbiota fermented GTCs. The compounds in black are detected metabolites, which are listed in Table 1, and the compounds in green are theoretical intermediates that were not detected.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The enhancement of DPPH radical scavenging (A) and ABST radical scavenging abilities (B), α-glucosidase inhibitory ability (C) and α-amylase inhibitory ability (D) of GTCs after fermentation by the human gut microbiota. Data are expressed as mean values, and their SDs are represented by vertical bars. The presence of different letters above the group columns indicates significant differences (n = 3, p < 0.05).
Figure 3
Figure 3
GTCs dynamically regulate the diversity and composition of human gut microbiota at each time point. (A) The relative abundance of gut microbiota at the phylum level. (B) The relative abundance of gut microbiota at the genus level. (C–F) The assessment of the alpha diversity of the gut microbiota based on different indices. (G,H) The principal coordinate analysis of the gut microbiota based on PCA and PCoA. All values are compared to the control at * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, and *** p < 0.001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The enhancement of certain genera of gut microbiota with the ability to catabolize flavan-3-ols during fermentation at time points of 0, 12, 24, and 48 h. Unidentified_Ruminococcus (A), Eubacterium (B), Flavonifractor (C), Enterococcus (D), and Clostridium (E), (A–E) are represented by vertical bars. The presence of different letters above group columns indicates significant differences (p < 0.05).
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