肠道微生物通过产生有益或有害的代谢物在宿主生理学中发挥关键作用。肠道细菌将膳食胆碱和左旋肉碱代谢为三甲胺 (TMA)，然后再转化为三甲胺-N-氧化物 (TMAO)。循环TMAO升高与人类糖尿病、肥胖、心血管疾病和癌症有关。在本研究中，我们研究了膳食蓝莓和草莓在一定营养剂量下对 TMA/TMAO 产生的影响以及肠道微生物的可能作用。蓝莓组小鼠接受对照 (C) 或冻干蓝莓补充剂 (CB) 饮食 12 周，亚组小鼠接受抗生素混合物（CA 和 CBA）。草莓组小鼠接受对照（N）或补充草莓（NS）饮食，亚组接受抗生素（NA 和 NSA）。除了浆果粉的微生物分析和表征之外，还评估了代谢参数、胆碱、TMA 和 TMAO。与 C 小鼠相比，补充蓝莓（相当于 1.5 份人类份量）可减少 CB 小鼠的循环 TMAO（约 48%），而不会改变胆碱或 TMA。这种效应不是通过代谢参数的改变来介导的。膳食草莓不会减少胆碱、TMA 或 TMAO。在这些队列中使用抗生素消除肠道微生物可将 TMA 和 TMAO 大幅降低至无法量化的水平。此外，膳食蓝莓增加了细菌类群的丰度，这些细菌类群与循环TMA/TMAO呈负相关，表明肠道微生物的作用。我们的酚类分析表明，这种效应可能是由于蓝莓中的绿原酸和酚类含量增加所致。我们的研究为考虑通过饮食蓝莓来减少 TMAO 并预防 TMAO 引起的并发症提供了证据。© 2023 国际生物化学与分子生物学联合会。

Gut microbes play a pivotal role in host physiology by producing beneficial or detrimental metabolites. Gut bacteria metabolize dietary choline and L-carnitine to trimethylamine (TMA) which is then converted to trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO). An elevated circulating TMAO is associated with diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer in humans. In the present study, we investigated the effect of dietary blueberries and strawberries at a nutritional dosage on TMA/TMAO production and the possible role of gut microbes. Blueberry cohort mice received a control (C) or freeze-dried blueberry supplemented (CB) diet for 12 weeks and subgroups received an antibiotics cocktail (CA and CBA). Strawberry cohort mice received a control (N) or strawberry-supplemented (NS) diet and subgroups received antibiotics (NA and NSA). Metabolic parameters, choline, TMA, and TMAO were assessed in addition to microbial profiling and characterization of berry powders. Blueberry supplementation (equivalent to 1.5 human servings) reduced circulating TMAO in CB versus C mice (~48%) without changing choline or TMA. This effect was not mediated through alterations in metabolic parameters. Dietary strawberries did not reduce choline, TMA, or TMAO. Depleting gut microbes with antibiotics in these cohorts drastically reduced TMA and TMAO to not-quantified levels. Further, dietary blueberries increased the abundance of bacterial taxa that are negatively associated with circulating TMA/TMAO suggesting the role of gut microbes. Our phenolic profiling indicates that this effect could be due to chlorogenic acid and increased phenolic contents in blueberries. Our study provides evidence for considering dietary blueberries to reduce TMAO and prevent TMAO-induced complications.© 2023 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.