A diet-microbial metabolism feedforward loop modulates intestinal stem cell renewal in the stressed gut

Dietary patterns and psychosocial factors, ubiquitous part of modern lifestyle, critically shape the gut microbiota and human health. However, it remains obscure how dietary and psychosocial inputs coordinately modulate the gut microbiota and host impact. Here, we show that dietary raffinose metabolism to fructose couples stress-induced gut microbial remodeling to intestinal stem cells (ISC) renewal and epithelial homeostasis. Chow diet (CD) and purified diet (PD) confer distinct vulnerability to gut epithelial injury, microbial alternation and ISC dysfunction in chronically restrained mice. CD preferably enriches Lactobacillus reuteri , and its colonization is sufficient to rescue stress-triggered epithelial injury. Mechanistically, dietary raffinose sustains Lactobacillus reuteri growth, which in turn metabolizes raffinose to fructose and thereby constituting a feedforward metabolic loop favoring ISC maintenance during stress. Fructose augments and engages glycolysis to fuel ISC proliferation. Our data reveal a diet-stress interplay that dictates microbial metabolism-shaped ISC turnover and is exploitable for alleviating gut disorders. Here, using a mouse model of chronic stress, the authors investigate how diet impacts stress and gut microbial structure and epithelial integrity and show that dietary raffinose metabolism to fructose couples stress-induced gut microbial remodeling to intestinal stem cell renewal and epithelial homeostasis.