Food-grade cationic antimicrobial ε-polylysine transiently alters the gut microbial community and predicted metagenome function in CD-1 mice

Study design of timeline (a) and grouping (b). Forty female and 40 male 6-week old CD-1 mice were randomly divided into four groups and segregated by sex and fed a 20% high-fat diet supplemented with (i) maltodextrin alone (MD), (ii) maltodextrin？+？ε-polylysine (PL), (iii) maltodextrin？+？pectin (P), and (iv) maltodextrin？+？ε-polylysine？+？pectin (PL-P). Five mice were co-housed and pooled fecal pellets from each cage were collected in 24-h metabolic cages and analyzed at three points: week 1, week 5, and week