marine drugs Article Effect of Chlorella Pyrenoidosa Protein Hydrolysate-Calcium Chelate on Calcium Absorption Metabolism and Gut Microbiota Composition in Low-Calcium Diet-Fed Rats Pengpeng Hua 1,2 , Yu Xiong 1, Zhiying Yu 1, Bin Liu 1,2,* and Lina Zhao 1,* 1 National Engineering Research Center of JUNCAO Technology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China; huapengpeng_fl
[email protected] (P.H.);
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[email protected] (Z.Y.) 2 College of Food Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] (B.L.);
[email protected] (L.Z.); Tel.: +86-591-8353-0197 (B.L. & L.Z.) Received: 30 April 2019; Accepted: 3 June 2019; Published: 11 June 2019 Abstract: In our current investigation, we evaluated the effect of Chlorella pyrenoidosa protein hydrolysate (CPPH) and Chlorella pyrenoidosa protein hydrolysate-calcium chelate (CPPH-Ca) on calcium absorption and gut microbiota composition, as well as their in vivo regulatory mechanism in SD rats fed low-calcium diets. Potent major compounds in CPPH were characterized by HPLC-MS/MS, and the calcium-binding mechanism was investigated through ultraviolet and infrared spectroscopy. Using high-throughput next-generation 16S rRNA gene sequencing, we analyzed the composition of gut microbiota in rats. Our study showed that HCPPH-Ca increased the levels of body weight gain, serum Ca, bone activity, bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC), while decreased serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and inhibited the morphological changes of bone. HCPPH-Ca up-regulated the gene expressions of transient receptor potential cation V5 (TRPV5), TRPV6, calcium-binding protein-D9k (CaBP-D9k) and a calcium pump (plasma membrane Ca-ATPase, PMCA1b).