Synergy between oligosaccharides and probiotics: From metabolic properties to beneficial effects

Abstract

Synbiotic is defined as the dietary mixture that comprises both probiotic microorganisms and prebiotic substrates. The concept has been steadily gaining attention owing to the rising recognition of probiotic, prebiotics, and gut health. Among prebiotic substances, oligosaccharides demonstrated considerable health beneficial effects in varieties of food products and their combination with probiotics have been subjected to full range of evaluations. This review delineated the landscape of studies using microbial cultures, cell lines, animal model, and human subjects to explore the functional properties and host impacts of these combinations. Overall, the results suggested that these combinations possess respective metabolic properties that could facilitate beneficial activities therefore could be employed as dietary interventions for human health improvement and therapeutic purposes. However, uncertainties, such as applicational practicalities, underutilized analytical tools, contradictory results in studies, unclear mechanisms, and legislation hurdles, still challenges the broad utilization of these combinations. Future studies to address these issues may not only advance current knowledge on probiotic-prebiotic-host interrelationship but also promote respective applications in food and nutrition.

Keywords:

• Oligosaccharides
• probiotics
• synbiotics
• dietary supplementation
• host health

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Youth Project (No. 32001666), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFE0131800), Beijing Technology and Business University Discipline Construction Program-Special Project for Graduate School Discipline Construction Quality improvement (2022), and the Research Foundation for Youth Scholars of Beijing Technology and Business University (No. QNJJ2022-11).