Resistant starch selectively depletes a putative pathobiont-enriched gut microbial module: evidence from multiple...

Dietary fiber, particularly resistant starch (RS), has been proposed to modulate the gut microbiota and immune microenvironment; however, individual intervention studies yield inconsistent results due to inter-study heterogeneity. This study aimed to identify reproducible gut microbiota responses to RS across multiple independent cohorts and explore the ecological basis by which RS shapes microbial community structure.

Gut microbiota composition was analyzed in 586 paired fecal samples collected from healthy adults in multiple independent cohorts undergoing RS dietary interventions. All datasets were processed through a unified bioinformatics pipeline to minimize technical variability. Differential abundance analysis, co-occurrence network analysis, and validation against inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) populations were performed to identify reproducible microbial responses and assess their potential clinical relevance.

RS supplementation was associated a consistent reduction in alpha diversity and a reproducible, unidirectional taxonomic response: 22 specific taxa were consistently depleted across cohorts, including putative immunostimulatory pathobionts such as Ruminococcus gnavus, without universally enriching any single beneficial species. PICRUSt2-based functional predictions showed limited KO-level changes, whereas CAZyme profiles showed a non-significant trend toward increased carbohydrate-degradation potential, with no individual CAZyme family surviving FDR correction.. Machine learning classification achieved moderate cross-cohort discrimination (leave-one-study-out AUROC ≈ 0.68). Cross-sectional validation in eight inflammatory bowel disease cohorts showed that RS-depleted taxa were significantly enriched in Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis (p < 0.01).

Across cohorts, RS intake was consistently associated with a selective ecological filter that consistently depletes a set of microbial taxa including putative immunostimulatory pathobionts, providing a mechanistic basis for its proposed role in dietary modulation of the gut immune microenvironment. These consistently depleted taxa may serve as candidate biomarkers to identify individuals most likely to benefit from RS-based dietary fiber interventions, while their utility for predicting individual responsiveness before intervention remains to be tested.