Benefits of Huang Lian mediated by gut microbiota on HFD/STZ-induced type 2 diabetes mellitus in mice

Background Huang Lian (HL), one of the traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) that contains multiple active components including berberine (BBR), has been used to treat symptoms associated with diabetes for thousands of years. Compared to the monomer of BBR, HL exerts a better glucose-lowering activity and plays different roles in regulating gut microbiota. However, it remains unclear what role the gut microbiota plays in the anti-diabetic activity of HL. Methods In this study, a type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) mouse model was induced with a six-week high-fat diet (HFD) and a one-time injection of streptozotocin (STZ, 75 mg/kg). One group of these mice was administrated HL (50 mg/kg) through oral gavage two weeks after HFD feeding commenced and continued for four weeks; the other mice were given distilled water as disease control. Comprehensive analyses of physiological indices related to glycolipid metabolism, gut microbiota, untargeted metabolome, and hepatic genes expression, function prediction by PICRUSt2 were performed to identify potential mechanism. Results We found that HL, in addition to decreasing body fat accumulation, effectively improved insulin resistance by stimulating the hepatic insulin-mediated signaling pathway. In comparison with the control group, HL treatment constructed a distinct gut microbiota and bile acid (BA) profile. The HL-treated microbiota was dominated by bacteria belonging to Bacteroides and the Clostridium innocuum group, which were associated with BA metabolism. Based on the correlation analysis, the altered BAs were closely correlated with the improvement of T2DM-related markers. Conclusion These results indicated that the anti-diabetic activity of HL was achieved, at least partly, by regulating the structure of the gut microbiota and the composition of BAs.