Science and Education Publishing Journal of Food and Nutrition Research 1 1 2013 06 24 The Response of Colonic Clostridium Cluster IV to Essential Oil and Aqueous Extract of Cinnamon Cassia in Rats 24 29 EN Cong Wang Shaoting Li Long Chen Xichun Peng Department of Food Science and Engineering, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China Xiyang Wu JFNR2013132 10.12691/jfnr-1-3-2 2013 05 17 2013 06 21 2013 06 24 The multiple pharmacological effects of Cinnamomum cassia (C. cassia) have been reported. The aim of this paper is to test the in vivo response of C. cassia derived materials on colonic Clostridium cluster IV that is supposed to relate the energy metabolism in body. The essential oil and aqueous extract of C. cassia were orally administered to 2 tested groups of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats for 30 days. After 30-days cultivation, the colonic contents of the rats were sampled to investigate the Clostridium cluster IV community structure through terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) and 16S rRNA gene clone library analysis. The results showed that the total peak areas of colonic Clostridium cluster IV, Shannon diversity index and evenness all decreased significantly in 2 tested groups compared with the control group (P < 0.01). Jaccard similarity index was under 50% in both tested groups. Putative species corresponding to diet-associated terminal restriction fragments (TRFs), 89, 172 and 177 bp, were identified through gene sequence as Acetanaerobacterium elongatum, Hydrogenoanaerobacterium saccharovorans, Anaerotruncus colihominis, Ethanoligenens harbinense, Clostridium cellulosi, Clostridium orbiscindens, Ruminococcusbromii and Papillibacter cinnamivorans. In conclusions, both essential oil and aqueous extract of C. cassia can alter the bacterial community structure and decline the diversity of colonic Clostridium cluster IV in SD rats. Those species of Clostridium cluster IV impacted during the experiment may play a role in the energy metabolism of host.