Current nutritional recommendations are focused on energy, fat, carbohydrate, protein and\nvitamins. Less attention has been paid to the nutritional demand of one-carbon units for nucleotide\nand methionine synthesis. Here, we investigated the impact of sodium formate supplementation as a\nnutritional intervention to increase the dietary intake of one-carbon units. A cohort of six female and\nsix male mice received 125 mM of sodium formate in the drinking water for three months. A control\ngroup of another six female and six male mice was also followed up for the same period of time. Tail\nvein blood samples were collected once a month and profiled with a haematology analyser. At the end\nof the study, blood and tissues were collected for metabolomics analysis and immune cell profiling.\nFormate supplementation had no significant physiological effect on male mice, except for a small\ndecrease in body weight. Formate supplementation had no significant effect on the immune cell\ncounts during the intervention or at the end of the study in either gender. In female mice, however, the\nbody weight and spleen wet weight were significantly increased by formate supplementation, while\nthe blood plasma levels of amino acids were decreased. Formate supplementation also increased the\nfrequency of bifidobacteria, a probiotic bacterium, in the stools of female mice. We conclude that\nformate supplementation induces physiological changes in a gender-specific manner.
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