Impact of Vitamin D Deficit on the Rat Gut Microbiome Robles-Vera, Iñaki Callejo, María Ramos, Ricardo Duarte Pérez, Juan Manuel Pérez-Vizcaíno, Francisco Microbiota 16S rRNA sequencing Vitamin D deficit Inadequate immunologic, metabolic and cardiovascular homeostasis has been related to either an alteration of the gut microbiota or to vitamin D deficiency. We analyzed whether vitamin D deficiency alters rat gut microbiota. Male Wistar rats were fed a standard or a vitamin D-free diet for seven weeks. The microbiome composition was determined in fecal samples by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The vitamin D-free diet produced mild changes on alpha- diversity but no effect on -diversity in the global microbiome. Markers of gut dysbiosis like Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio or the short chain fatty acid producing bacterial genera were not significantly affected by vitamin D deficiency. Notably, there was an increase in the relative abundance of the Enterobacteriaceae, with significant rises in its associated genera Escherichia, Candidatus blochmannia and Enterobacter in vitamin D deficient rats. Prevotella and Actinomyces were also increased and Odoribacteraceae and its genus Butyricimonas were decreased in rats with vitamin D-free diet. In conclusion, vitamin D deficit does not induce gut dysbiosis but produces some specific changes in bacterial taxa, which may play a pathophysiological role in the immunologic dysregulation associated with this hypovitaminosis. 2020-01-09T13:46:50Z 2020-01-09T13:46:50Z 2019-10-24 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Robles-Vera, I., Callejo, M., Ramos, R., Duarte, J., & Perez-Vizcaino, F. (2019). Impact of Vitamin D Deficit on the Rat Gut Microbiome. Nutrients, 11(11), 2564. http://hdl.handle.net/10481/58591 10.3390/nu11112564 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI