Individual Diet Has Sex-dependent Effects on Vertebrate Gut Microbiota

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2014 Jul 30

PMID 25072318

Citations 256

Authors

Daniel I Bolnick

Lisa K Snowberg

Philipp E Hirsch

Christian L Lauber

Elin Org

Brian Parks

Aldons J Lusis

Rob Knight

J Gregory Caporaso

Richard Svanback

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Vertebrates harbour diverse communities of symbiotic gut microbes. Host diet is known to alter microbiota composition, implying that dietary treatments might alleviate diseases arising from altered microbial composition ('dysbiosis'). However, it remains unclear whether diet effects are general or depend on host genotype. Here we show that gut microbiota composition depends on interactions between host diet and sex within populations of wild and laboratory fish, laboratory mice and humans. Within each of two natural fish populations (threespine stickleback and Eurasian perch), among-individual diet variation is correlated with individual differences in gut microbiota. However, these diet-microbiota associations are sex dependent. We document similar sex-specific diet-microbiota correlations in humans. Experimental diet manipulations in laboratory stickleback and mice confirmed that diet affects microbiota differently in males versus females. The prevalence of such genotype by environment (sex by diet) interactions implies that therapies to treat dysbiosis might have sex-specific effects.

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