‌Zhejiang Huakang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.‌, in collaboration with ‌Zhejiang Gongshang University‌, established the ‌"Key Laboratory of Sugar Alcohol Application Technology in China's Light Industry"‌, and jointly founded the ‌"Joint Laboratory for Functional Food Ingredient Development and Evaluation"‌ with ‌COFCO Nutrition and Health Research Institute‌. These laboratories have long focused on the critical scientific issue of ‌functional sugar alcohol metabolic regulation and gut health‌, dedicating efforts to the functional research of sugar alcohols and their applications in the healthy food sector.

Through persistent research, on ‌March 18‌, Zhejiang Huakang Pharmaceutical, in partnership with ‌Dr. Zhu Xuan's team‌ from the School of Food and Biological Engineering at Zhejiang Gongshang University and ‌Dr. Ying Jian's team‌ from COFCO Nutrition and Health Research Institute, published a groundbreaking research article titled ‌"Xylitol Enhances Synthesis of Propionate in the Colon via Cross-Feeding of Gut Microbiota"‌ in the internationally renowned journal Microbiome (Xiang, S., Ye, K., Li, M. et al. Microbiome ‌9‌, 62 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-021-01029-6). The study revealed the ‌mechanism of xylitol as a prebiotic‌ and its ‌targeted regulation of microbial metabolic pathways‌, providing new insights into the application of xylitol in the health food industry.

‌Xylitol‌, with a sweetness similar to sucrose and excellent taste, is one of the most popular sugar substitutes. Previous research on xylitol primarily focused on ‌oral microorganisms‌, while the mechanisms by which unabsorbed xylitol is utilized by gut microbiota remained unclear. Additionally, systematic analyses of xylitol's impact on ‌key enzyme expression‌, ‌microbial abundance‌, and ‌short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production‌ during intestinal microbial digestion were scarce.

The study found that xylitol does not significantly alter the ‌structure of the gut microbiome‌ but increases SCFA production, particularly ‌propionate in the lumen‌ and ‌butyrate in the mucosa‌, while shifting the corresponding bacterial populations in vitro. At the molecular level, ‌xylitol dehydrogenase (EC 1.1.1.14)‌, ‌xylulokinase (EC 2.7.1.17)‌, and ‌xylulose phosphate isomerase (EC 5.1.3.1)‌ were identified as key enzymes in xylitol metabolism, present in Bacteroides and Lachnospiraceae. These bacteria are thus considered pivotal in xylitol digestion.

The results demonstrated that xylitol ‌significantly boosts SCFA production‌, ‌lowers colonic pH‌, and achieves ‌targeted in situ propionate synthesis‌ through microbial cross-feeding. This mechanism maintains key microbial populations within a stable range without drastic shifts in diversity, improving the gut microenvironment while dynamically balancing the relative quantities of gut microbiota and preserving intestinal stability, thereby promoting host health.

This research provides a ‌theoretical foundation‌ for understanding xylitol's prebiotic mechanisms and its role in gut microbiota regulation, offering new directions for xylitol's application in health-focused food research.

‌URL‌: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-021-01029-6