Impact of a 3-Months Vegetarian Diet on the Gut Microbiota and Immune Repertoire
Open accessAbstract
The dietary pattern can influence the immune system directly, but may also modulate it indirectly by regulating the gut microbiota. Here, we investigated the effect of a 3-months lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet on the diversity of gut microbiota and the immune system in healthy omnivorous volunteers, using high-throughput sequencing technologies. The short-term vegetarian diet did not have any major effect on the diversity of the immune system and the overall composition of the metagenome. The prevalence of bacterial genera/species with known beneficial effects on the intestine, including butyrate-producers and probiotic species and the balance of autoimmune-related variable genes/families were, however, altered in the short-term vegetarians. A number of bacterial species that are associated with the expression level of IgA, a key immunoglobulin class that protects the gastrointestinal mucosal system, were also identified. Furthermore, a lower diversity of T-cell repertoire and expression level of IgE, as well as a reduced abundance of inflammation-related genes in the gut microbiota were potentially associated with a control group with long-term vegetarians. Thus, the composition and duration of the diet may have an impact on the balance of pro-/anti-inflammatory factors in the gut microbiota and immune system.
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- Authors
- Zhang, C., Björkman, A., Cai, K., Liu, G., Wang, C., Li, Y., Xia, H., Sun, L., Kristiansen, K., Wang, J., Han, J., Hammarström, L., & Pan-Hammarström, Q.
- Affiliations
- BGI Group (China) (CN)
- Karolinska Institutet (SE)
- HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology (US)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Corresponding author
- Cai, Kaiye
- ORCID
- Venue
- Frontiers in Immunology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2018-04-27
- Volume
- 9
- Pages
- 908-908
- ISSN
- 1664-3224 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5934425
- OpenAlex
- W2800240806
- Cited by
- 87
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 3.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Frontiers in Immunology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Vetenskapsrådet
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gut microbiota and health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutritional Studies and Diet
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Probiotics and Fermented Foods
- Keywords
- vegetarian diet, gut microbiota, immune repertoire, IgA, IgE, T cell receptor repertoire, butyrate-producing bacteria, probiotics, inflammatory genes, dietary intervention, metagenome
- MeSH terms
- Vegetarians, Gastrointestinal Microbiome, Adult, Bacteria, Butyrates, Female, Humans, Immunoglobulin A, Inflammation, Male, Middle Aged, Time Factors, Diet, Vegetarian, Immunity, Mucosal, Probiotics, Metagenome, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
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