Reportedly, a relationship exists between intestinal microflora and obesity-related lifestyle diseases. Blautia spp. a major intestinal microbiota, accounts for 3–11% of human intestinal microflora. Epidemiological reports have described that people with more visceral fat have less Blautia hansenii in their intestinal tract irrespective of age or gender. However, the effect of oral administration of heat-sterilized Blautia hansenii on obesity has not been clarified. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of dietary Blautia hansenii administration on obesity in high-fat-diet-induced obesity in a mouse model. Heat-sterilized cells of Blautia hansenii were used. C57BL/6J mice (normal mice, n = 7) were fed with each experimental diet for nine weeks. Diets for experimentation were: normal-fat (NF) diets, high-fat (HF) diets, and high-fat + Blautia hansenii (HF + Blautia) diets. The HF + Blautia group was administered about 1 × 10⁹ (CFU/mouse/day) of Blautia hansenii. During the periods of experimentation, body weight, food intake, water consumption, and fecal weight were recorded, and glucose tolerance tests were performed. Subsequently, the white adipose tissue (WAT) weight and serum components were measured. Short-chain fatty acid contents in the feces and cecum were analyzed. Furthermore, changes in the intestinal microflora were analyzed using meta-genomics analysis. Results showed that the total weight of WAT in the HF + Blautia group was significantly lower (13.2%) than that of the HF group. Moreover, the HF + Blautia group exhibited better glucose tolerance than the HF group. Productivity of short-chain fatty acids in the intestinal tract was at a significantly (p < 0.05) low level in the HF group; on the other hand, it recovered in the HF + Blautia group. Furthermore, there was a higher ratio of Blautia (p < 0.05) in the intestinal tracts of the HF + Blautia group than in the HF group. These results suggest that Blautia hansenii administration suppresses obesity induced by a high-fat diet.

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most fatal cancers, and there is an urgent need to develop new anticancer agents with fewer side effects for the treatment of this condition. A patient-derived xenograft (PDX) mouse model transplanted with cancer tissue from patients is widely accepted as the best preclinical model for evaluating the anticancer potential of drug candidates. Fucoxanthin (Fx) is a highly polar carotenoid contained in edible marine brown algae and possesses anticancer activity. However, there is a lack of data on the effects of Fx in PDX models. We investigated the anticancer effects of Fx in PDX mice transplanted with cancer tissues derived from a patient with PC (PC-PDX) using comprehensive protein expression assay. Fx administration (0.3%Fx diet) ad libitum for 27 days significantly abrogated tumor development (0.4-fold) and induced tumor differentiation in PC-PDX mice, as compared to those in the control mice. Fx significantly upregulated the expression of non-glycanated DCN (2.4-fold), tended to increase the expressions of p-p38(Thr¹⁸⁰/Tyr¹⁸²) (1.6-fold) and pJNK(Thr¹⁸³/Tyr¹⁸⁵) (1.8-fold), significantly downregulated IGFBP2 (0.6-fold) and EpCAM (0.7-fold), and tended to decrease LCN2 (0.6-fold) levels in the tumors of the PC-PDX mice, as compared to those in the control mice. Some of the protein expression patterns were consistent with the in vitro experiments. That is, treatment of fucoxanthinol (FxOH), a prime metabolite derived from dietary Fx, enhanced non-glycanated DCN, p-p38(Thr¹⁸⁰/Tyr¹⁸²), and pJNK(Thr¹⁸³/Tyr¹⁸⁵) levels in human PC PANC-1 and BxPC-3 cells.These results suggested that Fx exerts anticancer and differentiation effects in a PC-PDX mice through alterations of some multifunctional molecules.