Fig. 1: Maternal intake of butyrate suppresses liver and bile duct injury in the offspring.

A Schematic representation showing butyrate or water administration followed by evaluation of biliary disease in rotavirus (RRV)-infected mice. B Jaundice (generalized linear mixed effect model with logit link and two-sided Wald test with Bonferroni correction; ****p < 0.0001) and C survival (two-sided log-rank test; ****p < 0.0001) rates in RRV-infected newborn mice from water- or butyrate-fed mothers (n = 67–74 mice per group). Plasma alanine aminotransferase (ALT, [D]) and total bilirubin (E) from newborn mice 12–14 days after RRV (n = 5) or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS; Ctrl, n = 4) from water- or butyrate-fed mothers (bile duct injury/obstruction = Dis., n = 5; asymptomatic/resistant = Res., n = 7; mean ± SD, two-tailed ANOVA with Duncan’s multiple comparison; ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001). F Extrahepatic bile duct (EHBD) and liver sections 12–14 days after RRV or PBS (water and butyrate = maternal feeding; magnification bar = 100 μm; PV portal vein). In all, 15–30 EHBD and 5–10 liver sections (corresponding to >100 sections at ×200 or ×400 magnification fields from n = 11–22 mice) stained with H&E per tissue specimen were evaluated for histology analysis. G Virus titers in EHBD and livers at day 7 after RRV infection of newborn mice from water and butyrate-fed dams (mean ± SD, two-tailed unpaired Student’s t test with Welch’s correction; n = 5 biologically independent EHBD or livers per group; ns = not significant). H Volcano plot illustrating hepatic mononuclear cells with p values and fold changes between neonatal mice from water- and butyrate-treated mothers 7 days after RRV infection. The replicate values were determined using biologically distinct samples and p values calculated using unpaired Student’s t test with two-tailed distribution. The gating strategy for flow cytometric analyses is shown in Fig. S10A–K. Source data for this figure are provided as a Source data file.