{"doi":"10.31989/ffhd.v15i5.1603","title":"Steamed broccoli sprouts diet alleviates inflammatory bowel disease by increasing anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and gut protective metabolites in an ulcerative colitis mouse model","abstract":"Background: Broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable rich in bioactive compounds that may be beneficial against inflammatory bowel disease. However, an in-depth annotation and understanding of the metabolites and microbial interactions associated with the broccoli sprouts diet is necessary. Methods: Specific pathogen-free C57BL/6 mice (male, 6 weeks old) were divided into four treatments: control diet; control diet with 2.5% DSS in water to induce symptoms of ulcerative colitis; 90% control diet plus 10% steamed broccoli sprouts; and 90% control diet/ 10% steamed broccoli sprouts plus 2.5% DSS in drinking water to induce symptoms. DSS treatment was cycled three times, with five days of DSS followed by a recovery period of five days. Mice continued their diets throughout the duration of the study. Fecal samples were collected on day 30 and frozen at -80℃ until metabolomic analysis. Liquid chromatography, conducted using high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) was performed using a Waters Synapt G2, time-of-flight (TOF) XEVO. The LCMS metadata was processed in MassLynx, Progenesis QI, mzMine, and Sirius tools. This included the use of built-in search engines to obtain retention time, mass charge ratio, molecular weight, peak intensity, metabolites name, and formula using several libraries. Results: Over 3,000 fecal metabolites were abundant in the feces of mice, with diet being a significant factor of differentiation (+/- steamed broccoli sprouts) and ulcerative colitis (+/- 2.5% DSS) treatment methods. The steamed broccoli sprouts intervention significantly increased the concentrations of beneficial metabolites, such as sulforaphane, short-chain fatty acids, tryptophan, indoles, glutamic acid, and polyphenolic metabolites. A positive correlation with commensal bacteria, Bacteroides spp., Intestinimonas, Oscillibacter, and Lachnospiraceae was found in the gut's colon, colon, cecal, and jejunum regions, and jejunum regions. Novelty: This study used innovative metabolomic methods to identify dietary and microbial anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, prebiotic, and gut-protective metabolites associated with diets including steamed broccoli sprouts. The research concluded that the diet was effective against ulcerative colitis in mice. Conclusions: These data suggest that broccoli sprouts may positively affect metabolites and microbial interactions. These benefits include their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and gut-protective properties that help with inflammatory bowel disease symptoms. Keywords: cruciferous vegetables, sulforaphane, glucoraphanin, gut microbiota, dietary bioactives, metabolomics, ulcerative colitis model","journal":"Functional Foods in Health and Disease","year":2025,"id":566485,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9417,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1026502,"name":"Tao Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-9331-8832","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1074503,"name":"Yanyan Li","orcid":"0000-0002-8139-6718","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":649293,"name":"Suzanne L. Ishaq","orcid":"0000-0002-2615-8055","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1251770,"name":"Tolu Alaba","orcid":"0000-0002-1912-0825","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:36.440192Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}