Dietary Iron Intake Impacts the Microbial Composition of the Murine Intestinal and Lung Microbiome.

Background: Iron is an essential nutrient for many bacterial pathogens and normal cellular function and homeostasis of their hosts. Studies suggest that iron deficiency or overload may contribute to the pathogenesis of several chronic conditions and modify host-microbial interactions. In this study, we assessed the impact of varying dietary iron intakes on the microbiota of the intestinal tract and lungs of wild-type mice.

Methods: Male C57BL/6J mice were fed either a standard pellet chow (high iron diet), a ferrous ammonium sulfate (FeAS)-supplemented diet or an iron-deficient diet for four weeks. Tissue from the lung, duodenum and colon was collected, and 16S rRNA gene fragments were pyrosequenced.

Results: Total serum iron levels were negatively associated with richness of the lung microbiome ( = 0.035). In the murine lungs, there was no association between the iron diet and the overall lung microbiota community composition, but spp. were significantly enriched in the lungs of mice fed the FeAS diet (LDA score > 4, < 0.05). The community composition of the intestinal microbiota changed significantly depending on the iron diet, with increased richness in the low-iron compared to the iron-supplemented groups ( = 0.053). In the duodenum, spp. were reduced (Mean = 7.869, SEM = 3.464, < 0.05), and species increased (Mean = 5.343, SEM = 1.362, < 0.001) in iron-supplemented groups compared to the low-iron-diet group. In the colon, and species were reduced (Mean = 7.175, SEM = 2.246, < 0.01 and Mean = 6.967, SEM = 1.834, < 0.01 respectively), and increased (Mean = 24.03, SEM = 8.919, < 0.05) in mice on higher-iron diets compared to the low-iron diet.

Discussion: This study demonstrates that dietary iron intake significantly impacts the intestinal microbiota and has a small, yet significant, effect on the lung microbiome in C57BL/6J mice. Whilst dietary iron content per se did not significantly modulate the composition of the lung microbiota, serum iron levels had subtle impacts on the community composition of the lung microbiota.