ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Inflammation
This article is part of the Research TopicInflammation, Immunity, and Cancer: New Pathways Towards Therapeutic InnovationView all 19 articles
Eubacterium limosum modulates gut microbiota and produces anti-inflammatory metabolites to alleviate DSS-induced colitis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China
- 2University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
- 3Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China
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Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory condition of the intestine, for which no cure currently exists. The gut microbiota play a critical role in ameliorating IBD, and Eubacterium limosum has emerged as a potential probiotic with anti-inflammatory properties. However, the specific anti-inflammatory effects of E. limosum and the underlying mechanisms remain largely unexplored. In this study, we investigated the effects of E. limosum El1405, a strain recognized for its anti-colorectal cancer activity, on dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced murine colitis. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of E. limosum treatment on the host's inflammatory response. We demonstrated that the intervention with E. limosum significantly reduced the disease activity index, colon shortening, and colonic histopathological lesions. Additionally, 16S rRNA gene sequencing data showed that El1405 reshapes the intestinal microbiota community structure, resulting in a significant increase in the abundance of Bacteroides acidifaciens, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Mucispirillum schaedleri, Phocaeicola vulgatus (formerly Bacteroides vulgatus), and Akkermansia muciniphila, while concurrently decreasing the abundance of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. Additionally, the E. limosum intervention was found to downregulate IL-17 signaling and reduce levels of inflammatory cytokines associated with IL-17 signaling, including IL-6, IL-17, TNF-α, IL-21, IL-22, and GM-CSF. Metabolomic analysis indicated that E. limosum could induce anti-inflammatory effects by altering the serum metabolome of mice, especially producing anti-inflammatory metabolites such as indole-3-acetic acid and indole-3-lactic acid. Collectively, these findings indicate that E. limosum supplementation may represent a promising probiotic candidate for IBD prevention.
Keywords: Eubacterium limosum, Gut Microbiota, Colitis, IL-17 signaling, Metabolites
Received: 20 Oct 2025; Accepted: 27 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lu, Tang, Fan, Lan, Lin, Zhang, Liu and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: liyun Liu
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