Variations in prebiotic oligosaccharide fermentation by intestinal lactic acid bacteria

Abstract

Prebiotic oligosaccharides confer health benefits on the host by modulating the gut microbiota. Intestinal lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are potential targets of prebiotics; however, the metabolism of oligosaccharides by LAB has not been fully characterized. Here, we studied the metabolism of eight oligosaccharides by 19 strains of intestinal LAB. Among the eight oligosaccharides used, 1-kestose, lactosucrose and galactooligosaccharides (GOSs) led to the greatest increases in the numbers of the strains tested. However, mono- and disaccharides accounted for more than half of the GOSs used, and several strains only metabolized the mono- and di-saccharides in GOSs. End product profiles indicated that the amounts of lactate produced were generally consistent with the bacterial growth recorded. Oligosaccharide profiling revealed the interesting metabolic manner in Lactobacillus paracasei strains, which metabolized all oligosaccharides, but left sucrose when cultured with fructooligosaccharides. The present study clearly indicated that the prebiotic potential of each oligosaccharide differs.

Keywords:

• Lactobacillus
• metabolic profiles
• organic acid production

Acknowledgements

We thank to Ryosuke Nomura, Department of Food and Cosmetic Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture, for his technical assistance.

Disclosure statement

Takumi Tochio, Kenta Konishi and Saki Nakamura are employees of β Food Science Co., which is the producer of 1-kestose and XOSs used in this study. The remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Funding information

This study was partly funded by β Food Science Co.