Open AccessSensitive and Simplified Detection of Antibiotic Influence on the Dynamic and Versatile Changes of Fecal Short-Chain Fatty Acids
Author(s) -
Xia Zhao,
Zhenzuo Jiang,
Fan Yang,
Yan Wang,
Xiumei Gao,
Yuefei Wang,
Xin Chai,
Guixiang Pan,
Yan Zhu
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0167032
Subject(s) - feces , antibiotics , cefdinir , chemistry , microbiology and biotechnology , short chain fatty acid , gut flora , fermentation , biology , food science , biochemistry , cephalosporin , butyrate
Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), produced by anaerobic fermentation of mainly indigestible dietary carbohydrates by gut microbiota, have a profound influence on intestinal function and host energy metabolism. Antibiotics may seriously disturb the balance of fecal SCFAs. To evaluate the impacts of antibiotics on fecal SCFAs produced by gut microbiota, a simple, reproducible and accurate gas chromatography (GC) method, which can simultaneously analyze seven SCFAs in fecal samples, was developed and validated. The ranges of detection and quantitation of the SCFAs reached 0.0868 ~ 0.393 and 0.261 ~ 1.18 μg·mL -1 respectively, in an optimized protocol for SCFAs extraction and analysis that used 10 mL 75% ethanol aqueous solution containing 1% HCl, without ultrasonication. The technique exhibited excellent intra-day (relative standard deviation (RSD) ≤ 2.54%) and inter-day (RSD ≤ 4.33%) precisions for all the SCFAs. Later, we administered broad-spectrum antibiotics, cefdinir or azithromycin to rats and analyzed the alterations in fecal SCFAs. The total amount, types and distribution of nearly all fecal SCFAs were significantly altered during the administration and even after withdrawal of the antibiotics in rats. The effects of cefdinir on the SCFAs were more pronounced than those of azithromycin. Our findings suggest SCFAs may serve as sensitive indicators to monitor the influences of antibiotics on SCFAs originated by intestinal bacteria. Our improved SCFAs analysis method is a potential platform for a standard clinical test of the effects of new antibiotics on SCFAs.