Whether Mice Get Fatter Or Thinner Depends On The Fungal Microbiome That Lives In Their Gut
Mice with certain communities of fungi living in their gut gained more weight when eating processed food than mice whose gut microbiomes hosted different communities of fungi, according to our study published March 5 in the journal Communications Biology.
Fungi make up a small but important part of gut microbiomes.
Mogana Das Murtey and Patchamuthu Ramasamy via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Microbiomes are communities of microorganisms. In this study, we explored whether the fungal members of the gut microbiome – called the mycobiome – changed their host’s metabolic reaction to processed food. To do this, we obtained genetically identical mice from four different companies – each with different fungal microbiomes – and then fed the mice either standard mouse food or processed food resemblin...