Aspirin eugenol ester regulates cecal contents metabolomic profile and microbiota in an animal model of hyperlipidemia

BACKGROUND: Hyperlipidemia, with an increasing of prevalence, has become one of the common metabolic diseases in companion animal clinic. Aspirin eugenol ester (AEE) is a novel compound that exhibits efficacious anti-hyperlipidemia activities. However, its mechanisms are still not completely known. The objective of present study was to investigate the intervention effects of AEE on cecal contents metabonomics profile and microbiota in hyperlipidemia rats. RESULTS: Three groups of rats were fed with a control diet, or high fat diet (HFD) containing or not AEE. The results showed the beneficial effects of AEE in HFD-fed rats such as the reducing of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and total cholesterol (TCH). Distinct changes in metabonomics profile of cecal contents were observed among control, model and AEE groups. HFD-induced alterations of eight metabolites in cecal contents mainly related with purine metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, glycerophospholipid metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism and pyrimidine metabolism were reversed by AEE treatment. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and cluster analysis of microbiota showed altered patterns with distinct differences in AEE group versus model group, indicating that AEE treatment improved the negative effects caused by HFD on cecal microbiota. In addition, the correction analysis revealed the possible link between the identified metabolites and cecal microbiota. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed regulation effects of AEE on cecal contents metabonomics profile and microbiota, which could provide information to reveal the possible underlying mechanism of AEE on hyperlipidemia treatment. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12917-018-1711-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.