Mesalazine and Prebiotic Treatment Alters Metabolic Inflammation in Fattening Ground Squirrels

Metabolic inflammation is a systemic inflammation event that occurs during fattening and can induce or exacerbate comorbidities. The objective of this study is to determine if a diet containing mesalazine, prebiotics (inulin and pectin), or a mesalazine/prebiotic mixture will alter metabolic inflammation in 13-lined ground squirrels ( Ictidomys tridecemlineatus ). We chose ground squirrels, a hibernator, as our model organism because they rapidly gain adipose mass during their active season. We hypothesize that a diet containing a mixture of mesalazine and prebiotics will have the greatest effect on metabolic inflammation because mesalazine is a gut-localized nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and prebiotics help boost anti-inflammatory gut microbiota. Shortly (48 hours) after emerging from hibernation in the spring, ground squirrels were randomly assigned to 1 of the 4 diets. Squirrels stayed on their assigned diets for 8 weeks and tissues were collected from a subset of squirrels after 4 and 8 weeks. We examined levels of the proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-10 in the ileum, colon, and omental white adipose tissue (oWAT) using sandwich ELISA. Specialty diets had the greatest effect on ileum and colon, compared to oWAT. In the ileum, IL-10 and TNF- α increased with the mesalazine diet, although at different timepoints. In the colon, the prebiotics diet decreased TNF-α and increased IL-10. The mesalazine diet also increased IL-10 levels in the colon. In oWAT, the diets did not affect cytokine levels. The diet that affected metabolic inflammation the most overall was the mesalazine diet. This did not support our hypothesis, as we believed the mesalazine/prebiotic diet would show the most significance. Study supported by NIH R15GM124586. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.