Abstract
This study was designed to evaluate the effect of ovariectomy on nutrikinetics of genistein metabolites. To characterize the time-dependent changes in genistein metabolite concentrations, we identified 13 genistein metabolites using ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The nutrikinetics of the individual metabolites at different time points were analyzed. Nutrikinetic analysis showed that genistein, genistein 4'-glucuronide, genistein 7-glucuronide, 3-hydroxygenistein, and hippuric acid showed relatively high bioavailability in the sham group compared to that in the ovariectomy group, suggesting that ovariectomy likely results in lower genistein bioavailability. These results may be related to alteration of gut microbiota by ovariectomy. The relative abundance of species of the Parabacteroides, Dorea, and Butyricimonas genera, and Desulfovibrionaceae_unclassified, Lachnospiraceae_unclassified, and Rikenellaceae_unclassified families increased in the ovariectomy group while the relative abundance of 523_7_unclassified and Y52_unclassified_unclassified increased in the sham group. These results suggest that gut microbiota alteration by ovariectomy may affect genistein bioavailability.