Comparison of mice gut microbiota before and after fasting for a day

In this study, we investigated the effects of fasting on gut microbiota of mice fed normal (CTL) or high-fat diets (HF). Mice were raised for 16 weeks and fasted for a day at the end of the experiment. Fecal samples were collected one day before and after fasting, which were analyzed using MiSeq. Our results showed that the species richness and evenness were decreased in fasted HF group, whereas no difference was observed for CTL groups. Moreover, HF fed mice gut microbiota showed different microbial communities after fasting, while CTL groups did not show microbiota shifts. Differential abundance analysis showed that fasting CTL group mice increased and decreased one operational taxonomic unit (OTU) in S24_7 and one OTU in Ruminococcaceae, respectively. On the other hand, fasting HF group mice decreased 10 OTUs and increased 3 OTUs most of which were classified to Ruminococcaceae. Our results suggest that fasting mice may affect the abundance of Ruminococcaceae species and effects of fasting seem to be more obvious for HF-fed mice compared to those of mice fed CTL-diet.