Background: Inulin-type fructans have been used as prebiotics to alleviate glucose and lipid metabolism disorders. However, few studies evaluate the microbial mechanism of inulin in improving maternal metabolic status during pregnancy. Methods: We use high fat-sucrose diet-induced gestational diabetes mice as a model to study the effect of inulin-type fructans on the cecal microbiota by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Results: The inulin-type fructans-supplemented diet improved glucose and

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... pid metabolism disorder parameters in high-fat/sucrose diet (HFD) induced gestational diabetes mice, alleviating fat accumulation and glucose intolerance. The α diversity of gut microbial community of HFD mice was reduced after inulin treatment, while the β diversity tended to return to the level of normal chow diet (NCD) mice. Interestingly, Verrucomicrobia, Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia were obviously enriched, while Dubosiella was obviously lessened after inulin treatment. Further analysis indicated that Dubosiella was positively correlated with markers of glycolipid metabolism disorders, whereas the inulin-type fructans-supplemented diet partially reversed the changes. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the inulin-type fructans-supplemented diet alleviates glucose and lipid metabolism disorders mediated by gut microbiota.