Abstract: In this study, the Cyperus esculentus dietary fiber was used as the fermentation substrate to explore the change of gut microbiota and the content of short-chain fat acids following its gut microbiota fermentation via a 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing, and the soybean dietary fiber was taken as the control. The results showed that the fermentation of the Cyperus esculentus dietary fiber significantly promoted the production of SCFAs, but its SCFAs generation capacity was lower than that of soybean dietary fiber. This study also found that a higher level of dietary fiber could significantly change the diversity and richness of gut microbiota, and the significant differences of the gut microbiota profile between the two kinds of dietary fiber following the fermentation were obtained. The results at phylum level of gut microbial demonstared that the Cyperus esculentus dietary fiber significantly promoted the growth of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria, while inhibited the abundance of Bacteroidota, which fermentation property was different from that of soybean dietary fiber. Moreover, Compared with soybean dietary fiber, the fermentation of Cyperus esculentus dietary fiber significantly increased the relative abundance of Subdoligranulum, Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and Faecalibacterium while supressed the abundance of Prevotella and Bacteroides. This study may highlight a potent application of the Cyperus esculentus dietary fiber as a novel prebiotics.

Key words: Cyperus esculentus, Dietary fiber, in vitro fermentation, Gut microbiota, Short-chain fatty acids