Consumption of post-fermented Jing-Wei Fuzhuan brick tea alleviates liver dysfunction and intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in high fructose diet-fed mice

Emerging evidence supports the health-promoting ability of a special microbial-fermented Fuzhuan brick tea. Epigallocatechin gallate was identified as a dominant flavonoid of Fuzhuan tea aqueous extract (FTE). Mice were treated with 30% high fructose (HF) water feeding alone or in combination with administration of FTE at 400 mg per kg bw for 13 weeks. FTE caused strong inhibition against the elevation of liver weight, serum enzymatic (aspartate aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase) activities and hepatic inflammatory cytokines (interleukin-1, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α and tumor necrosis factor-β) formation, as well as dyslipidemia (total cholesterol, total triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol) in HF-fed mice (p < 0.05). Hepatic malonaldehyde formation was lowered, while superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activities were enhanced by FTE treatment, relative to HF-fed mice (p < 0.05), and histopathological evaluation confirmed the protection. As revealed by 16S rDNA gene sequencing, FTE notably increased abundance of Bacteroidetes and Lactobacillus, but reduced population of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Tenericutes in HF feeding mice. These findings suggest that FTE exerts a hepatoprotective effect by modifying hepatic oxidative stress, inflammatory response and gut microbiota dysfunction.