Personalized diets change the internal metabolism of organisms, which, in turn, affects the health of the body; this study was performed to explore the regulatory effects of polysaccharides extracted from Auricularia auricula on the overall metabolism and gut microbiota in normal C57BL/6J mice. The study was conducted using metabolomic and microbiomic methods to provide a scientific basis for further development and use of Auricularia auricula resources in the Qinba Mountains and in nutritional food with Auricularia auricula polysaccharides (AAP) as the main functional component. Based on LC-MS/MS metabolomic results, 51 AAP-regulated metabolites were found, mainly enriched in the arginine biosynthesis pathway, which had the highest correlation, followed by the following metabolisms: arginine and proline; glycine, serine and threonine; and glycerophospholipid, along with the sphingolipid metabolism pathway. Furthermore, supplementation of AAP significantly changed the composition of the mice intestinal flora. The relative abundance levels of Lactobacillus johnsonii, Weissella cibaria, Kosakonia cowanii, Enterococcus faecalis, Bifidobacterium animalis and Bacteroides uniformis were markedly up-regulated, while the relative abundance of Firmicutes bacterium M10-2 was down-regulated. The bioactivities of AAP may be related to the regulatory effects of endogenous metabolism and gut microbiota composition.

Beef is an important high-nutrition livestock product, and several byproducts, such as bovine cartilage, are produced during slaughter. To effectively utilize these agricultural and pastoral byproducts, combined (trypsin-papain) enzymolysis and cetylpyridine chloride purification methods were used to obtain chondroitin sulfate (CS) from the nasal cartilage of Shaanxi Yellow cattle. The effects of pH, temperature, and time on the CS yield during enzymatic hydrolysis were investigated, and the CS extraction process was optimized using response surface methodology. The best yield of CS was 21.62% under the optimum conditions of pH 6.51, temperature of 64.53°C, and enzymolysis time of 19.86 h. The molecular weight of CS from Shaanxi cattle nasal cartilage was 89.21 kDa, glucuronic acid content was %, protein content was %, and sulfate group content was %. The nasal cartilage CS of the Yellow cattle showed strong DPPH•, •OH, and ABTS⁺• radical scavenging abilities and ferrous reduction ability in the experimental concentration range. This study could contribute to “turn waste into treasure” and improve the comprehensive utilization of regional characteristic biological resources.

Background: Bee pollen is a uniquely complete nutritional product that has shown promise in alleviating obesity. While existing research has largely focused on the role of gut microbiota in obesity, the mechanisms by which bee pollen influences bile acid (BA) metabolism via microbial regulation remain poorly understood. Methods: This study hypothesized that Schisandra chinensis bee pollen extract (SCPE) could mitigate high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity by regulating BA metabolism. Results: In a 12-week animal experiment, SCPE supplementation significantly reduced body weight gain, lipid accumulation, and adipocyte hypertrophy, while improving insulin sensitivity and relieving hepatic oxidative stress. These benefits were attributed to an increased relative abundance of bile salt hydrolase (BSH)-producing microbes, including Bacteroides, Lachnospiraceae NK4A136 group, and Akkermansia, which modulated BA metabolism by improving the expression of BA metabolism-related genes and reducing the concentrations of various types of BAs. Conclusions: These findings provide new insights into the mechanism by which SCPE alleviates obesity through the gut microbiota-BA axis and support the potential of bee pollen as a functional food for obesity management.