Effects of Organic Versus Conventional Beef on the Gut Microbiome, Inflammatory Markers and Plasma Lipids in Overweight and Obese Individuals

to prepare and analyze the data.Amplicon sequence variants were generated via DADA2, and classified using the SILVA (v138.2) databases curated by RESCRIPt.Data was subsequently analyzed using eta-diversity (Weighted UniFrac, Unweighted UniFrac, Bray-Curtis, & Jaccard), and differential abundance (ANCOM-BC) analyses.Results: Both obesity and dietary soy protein (i.e.SPC-LIF and SPC-HIF) altered fecal microbial beta-diversity.Generally, all beta diversity metrics supported significant differences across obesity and soy protein diets (SPC-LIF and SPC-HIF).ANCOM-BC detected differential enrichment of microbial features of Zucker rats at both 9-and 18-weeks.Compared to the CAS control, the dietary effect was more pronounced in the SPC-HIF groups at both time points.These significant microbial features were visualized via a clustermap and show segregation of samples based on obesity status and dietary treatments.Conclusions: Lean and obese Zucker rats had different fecal microbial compositions.Dietary soy protein and isoflavones had both short-term (9-week) and long-term (18-week) effects on fecal microbial profile in lean and obese rats.