The effect of modified citrus pectin-probiotic on faecal lactobacilli in Balb/c mice

Abstract

Intestinal bacteria utilize the constituent of ingested food for their metabolic activities making the gut microbiota a target in the modification of functional foods. This study examines the effect of modified citrus pectin and encapsulated probiotic, Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC 4356 on colon lactobacilli microbiota in healthy Balb/c mice. Mice were orally administered once daily with modified citrus pectin alginate probiotic, alginate calcium probiotic, modified citrus pectin and water for 28 days. Faecal lactobacilli count were determined using automated colony counter Doc-It  imaging station. The number of faecal lactobacilli in the modified citrus pectin alginate probiotic-treated mice significantly increased at day 7, 14 and 28 [7.99 ± 0.22, 8.32 ± 0.08 and 8.36 ± 0.23 (log 10 cfu/g) respectively]. A little or no increase in the faecal lactobacilli count was noted in the modified citrus pectin-treated mice. Modified citrus pectin alginate combined with live probiotic, Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC 4356 supplements can be used as probiotic therapy to improve the intestinal lactobacilli microbiota in healthy host.

In vitro fermentation properties of pectins and enzymatic-modified pectins obtained from different renewable bioresources

“…Nonetheless, only a few recent studies have addressed the prebiotic potential of MP in terms of the fermentation properties. A slight or no increase was observed in the faecal lactobacilli count during an in vivo study with rats fed with citrus MP (Odun-Ayo, Mellem, & Reddy, 2017). Di et al (2017) compared five structurally different citrus pectic samples (3 of them were POS and 2 were MP) and found that two POS and one MP exhibited bifidogenic effects with similar fermentabilities in human faecal cultures.…”

Therapeutic and pharmaceutical benefits of native and modified plant pectin

“…Oral administration of modified citrus pectinalginate microbeads containing Lactobacillus acidophilus to mice increased fecal count of lactobacilli substantially after few days. This indicates that MCP-alginate microbeads can be used as probiotic for improving the microflora content in the gut (Beneke et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2015;Odun-Ayo et al, 2017).…”

“…These sub-fractions may be used in the future to control several infections (Wang et al, 2014). Probiotic activity of plant pectin has been proved in vitro but no suitable experimental protocol is available yet to provide in vivo sampling and to actually identify sites of colonization of beneficial bacteria in the gut (Odun-Ayo et al, 2017). Better understanding of structure-activity relationships of modified pectin is necessary to achieve consistent pharmacological and therapeutic benefits as well as to design and optimize pectin-based scaffolds for controlled and targeted drug delivery in oncotherapy.…”

Potential Roles of Modified Pectin Targeting Galectin-3 against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2

“…In our previous studies, we reported the initiation of MCP and adhesion of probiotic bacteria to specific receptors on the epithelial cell surface of the colon to inhibit the extracellular matrix interactions of GAL-3 [17]. We further showed that MCP alginate supplemented with a probiotic, Lactobacillus acidophilus ATCC 4356, significantly increases fecal lactobacilli and improves the integrity of intestinal microbiota [25,112]. As a result, the synthesized extracellular macromolecules also contribute to modulating the immune response [113,114].…”