Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Mar 23, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 23, 2021 - May 18, 2021
Date Accepted: Jul 30, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Intervention with Michigan-Grown Wheat in Healthy Adult Humans to Determine Effect on Gut Microbiota: A Cross-Over Trial Protocol
ABSTRACT
Background:
Daily fiber intake can increase diversity of the human gut microbiota as well as the abundance of beneficial microbes and their metabolites. Whole grain wheat is a good source of fiber.
Objective:
To understand effects of different types of wheat on gastrointestinal tract microbes.
Methods:
Human adults will consume crackers made from three types of wheat flour (refined soft white wheat, whole grain soft white wheat, and whole grain soft red wheat). Participants will alternate between crackers made from refined soft white wheat flour to those made from whole grain soft white wheat and from whole grain soft red wheat flour. Survey and stool sample collections will occur after seven-day treatment periods. We will assess how wheat consumption impacts (1) gastrointestinal bacteria using sequencing of the V4 region of 16S rRNA gene amplicons and (2) inflammatory state of participants’ intestines using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). Targeted quantitative real-time PCR will determine butyrate-production capacity of the gut microbiota.
Results:
We will report treatment effects on alpha and beta diversity of the microbiota and taxa-specific differences. Microbiota results will be analyzed using the vegan package in R. Butyrate production capacity and biomarkers of intestinal inflammation will be analyzed using parametric statistical methods such as analysis of variance or linear regression. We expect whole wheat to increase butyrate production capacity, bacterial alpha diversity, and abundance of bacterial taxa responsive to phenolic compounds. Soft red wheat is also expected to decrease the concentration of inflammatory biomarkers in stool of participants.
Conclusions:
This protocol describes methods to be employed for a study of the impact of wheat types on the human gastrointestinal microbiota and biomarkers of intestinal inflammation. Analysis of intestinal responses to consumption of two types of whole wheat will expand understanding of the impact of specific foods on health-associated outcomes.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.