High resistant starch mutant wheat ‘TAC 35’ reduced glycemia and ameliorated high fat diet induced metabolic dysregulation in mice

Dietary supplementation of low glycemic index (GI) food obtained from cereal crops is affordable and can reduce the risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity and colon cancer. In this study, two high resistant starch (HRS) wheat mutant lines (‘TAC 35’ and ‘TAC 28’) showed up to 25% drop in GI compared to parent wheat variety ‘C 306’ in mice (P ≤ 0.001). Further, the best low GI mutant line, ‘TAC 35’ was used to observe its health benefit effects against high fat diet (HFD) for 10-weeks in C57BL/6J mice model. The mutant showed a significant reduction in body weight and tissues (fat, liver, spleen) weight from ∼23.5 to 68.4% with respect to HFD. It also showed significant increase in glucose tolerance (41%), insulin sensitivity (28%), liver SOD (26%), serum SOD (16.3%) and significant decrease in liver H2O2 (29%) and serum H2O2 (35%), LDL (39%) and total cholesterol (7%), pro-inflammatory markers: IL-6 (9.56%) and TNFα (23.32%). Furthermore, the HRS diet fostered a healthy bacterial population and resulted in a profound boost in butyrate (40%), lactate (23%), and acetate (28%). Besides, the HRS diet's preventative efficacy was also revealed by the expression of disease-related genes. This study emphasizes the critical health benefits of HRS-low GI wheat which may be promoted for obese and diabetic populations.