Danggui Buxue Tang restores antibiotic-induced metabolic disorders by remodeling the gut microbiota

Danggui Buxue Tang (DBT) has been used to promote hematopoiesis and relieve myelosuppression in China. Antibiotics can cause myelosuppression through gut microbiota disorders.

This study aims to explore the way of DBT to alleviate the metabolic disorder caused by antibiotics.

In this study, 16S rRNA sequencing was used to detect the change of gut microbiota, metabolomics to analyze the change of metabolites. Correlation analysis was used to establishment the correlation between gut microbiota and metabolites. PICRUST 2 was used to predict the function of gut microbiota.

Results showed that eighty-two genera of gut microbiota were affected by antibiotic, while twelve were significantly restored after DBT. Seventy-four potential metabolites were significantly different from the antibiotics and DBT. We found significant recovery by the Bacteroides and Rikenellaceae RC9 after DBT. The metabolic pathways influenced by the antibiotic treatment included primary and secondary bile biosynthesis, etc. The metabolic pathways that could be restored after DBT included the primary and secondary bile acid biosynthesis pathway, etc. Through correlation analysis, we found a correlation between the Bacteroides, Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group and other potential differential metabolisms such as those of taurodeoxycholic acid, N-phenylacetyl glycine, etc. The functional prediction showed that the biosynthesis of primary bile acid, secondary bile acid was significantly affected.

DBT can restore the gut and reverse the metabolic disorder caused by antibiotics through Bacteroides, and it provides a new medical idea regarding the gut microbiota balance.