Short communications Interindividual variability in the human metabolism of ellagic acid: Contribution of Gordonibacter to urolithin production María Romo-Vaquero 1 , Rocío García-Villalba 1 , Antonio González-Sarrías, David Beltrán, Francisco A. Tomás-Barberán, Juan C. Espín, María V. Selma * Research Group on Quality, Safety and Bioactivity of Plant Foods, Department of Food Science and Technology, CEBAS-CSIC, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 30 April 2015 Received in revised form 17 June 2015 Accepted 19 June 2015 Available online ABSTRACT The contribution of Gordonibacter to the different abilities, both qualitative and quantita- tive, of individuals to transform dietary ellagic acid into anti-inflammatory urolithins was investigated. A specific and suitable q-PCR system was developed for the detection and quan- tification of Gordonibacter. Ellagic acid metabolism in the gut and faecal microbiota of healthy individuals, who consumed walnuts (n = 20) or a pomegranate extract (n = 49), were studied. Urolithin-A was positively correlated to Gordonibacter in faeces, whereas excretion of isourolithin-A and/or urolithin-B was inversely correlated to both.The relationship between Gordonibacter and urolithin-A found in vivo was also confirmed in vitro. This suggests that the beneficial effects attributed to the consumption of foods containing ellagic acid could be mediated by the individuals’ Gordonibacter levels. The development of prebiotics, probiotics or synbiotic aimed at increasing Gordonibacter and related species could improve the indi- vidual’s ability to produce the anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective and anticancer metabolite urolithin-A. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Polyphenols Ellagitannin Gut microbiota Quantitative qPCR Walnut Pomegranate 1. Introduction Ellagitannins are polyphenols present in berries (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and cloudberry, among others), pome- granates, muscadine grapes, walnuts, almonds, and oak- aged wines, among other foods (Espín, Larrosa, García-Conesa, & Tomás-Barberán, 2013; Madrigal-Carballo, Rodriguez, Krueger, Dreher, & Reed, 2009). Upon hydrolysis in the gut, ellagitannins release ellagic acid (EA), which is only slightly absorbed and extensively metabolized to urolithins, by the gut microbiota ( Cerdá, Espín, Parra, Martínez, & Tomás-Barberán, 2004; Mertens-Talcott, Jilma-Stohlawetz, Rios, Hingorani, & Derendorf, 2006; Seeram et al., 2006). There is, however, a large * Corresponding author. Research Group on Quality, Safety and Bioactivity of Plant Foods, Department of Food Science andTechnology, CEBAS-CSIC, Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain. Tel.: +34 968396102; fax: +34 968396213. E-mail address: mvselma@cebas.csic.es (M.V. Selma). 1 These authors contributed equally to this work. Chemical compounds: Urolithin A (PubChem CID: 5488186); Urolithin B (PubChem CID: 5380406); Ellagic acid (PubChem CID: 5281855). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2015.06.040 1756-4646/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Functional Foods 17 (2015) 785–791 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jff ScienceDirect