Lipid stress evolved, microbiome‐based probiotics reduce lipid uptake in mice

Abstract Controlling the molecular transport of nutrients through the gut is an attractive strategy to modulate host metabolism. Herein, a technique of stress‐based evolution of an individual's own microbiota to enhance lipid metabolism is presented, which is based on sequential culture of these bacteria in higher concentrations of lipids. Using this technique, a probiotic formulation of bacterial colonies that exhibit increased lipid metabolism was generated from oral microbiota samples from mice, canine, and human sources. Mice fed a high‐fat diet (HFD) and administered lipid stress evolved (LSE) probiotics excreted increased lipids in stool and reduced triglyceride transport into the blood by three‐fold till 3 h post‐oral gavage of soybean oil, as compared to controls. In addition, these enhanced probiotics prevented weight gain in mice fed a HFD five‐fold better than controls and induced weight loss in mice with diet change three‐fold faster than diet change alone. In these mice, there was a marked change in appearance with a more healthy, less oily coat. Controlled metabolic cage experiments demonstrated that the total movement, food intake, and water intake were not significantly different between mice receiving LSE probiotic versus a control probiotic formulation, suggesting that important health measures are unchanged with LSE probiotic administration. Overall, this facile stress‐based culture technique can be utilized to modulate bacterial metabolism and applied to different industrial processes of probiotic generation and to affect different disease outcomes such as obesity.