Impact of 2′-Fucosyllactose on Gut Microbiota Composition in Adults with Chronic Gastrointestinal Conditions: Batch Culture Fermentation Model and Pilot Clinical Trial Findings

Abstract

Intestinal dysbiosis has been described in patients with certain gastrointestinal conditions including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and ulcerative colitis. 2′-fucosyllactose (2′-FL), a prebiotic human milk oligosaccharide, is considered bifidogenic and butyrogenic. To assess prebiotic effects of 2′-FL, alone or in combination with probiotic strains (potential synbiotics), in vitro experiments were conducted on stool from healthy, IBS, and ulcerative colitis adult donors. In anaerobic batch culture fermenters, Bifidobacterium and Eubacterium rectale-Clostridium coccoides counts, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) including butyrate increased during fermentation with 2′-FL and some of the 2′-FL/probiotic combinations. In a subsequent open-label pilot trial, the effect of a 2′-FL-containing nutritional formula was evaluated in twelve adults with IBS or ulcerative colitis. Gastrointestinal Quality of Life Index (GIQLI) total and gastrointestinal symptoms domain scores, stool counts of Bifidobacterium and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and stool SCFAs including butyrate, increased after six weeks of intervention. Consistent with documented effects of 2′-FL, the batch culture fermentation experiments demonstrated bifidogenic and butyrogenic effects of 2′-FL during fermentation with human stool samples. Consumption of the 2′-FL-containing nutritional formula by adults with IBS or ulcerative colitis was associated with improvements in intra- and extra-intestinal symptoms, and bifidogenic and butyrogenic effects.

The Dietary Fiber Pectin: Health Benefits and Potential for the Treatment of Allergies by Modulation of Gut Microbiota

“…Supplementation of prebiotics as food ingredients has been proposed to prevent several inflammatory diseases [23][24][25][26][27] as well as allergies [10,28,29,30,31,32]. Cohort studies have indicated that one of the factors preceding the development of food allergies is gut dysbiosis [2,33,34].…”

Architecture Insight of Bifidobacterial α-L-Fucosidases

“…infantis fucosidases mentioned above can open a new perspective towards the synthesis of novel fucosylated conjugates by using different substrates beyond lactose for synthetizing 2 -fucosyllactose. This vision is oriented towards the supply those novel fucosylated conjugates to adults in combination with fucosidase producer bifidobacteria in order to maintain a healthy microbiota or to reestablish it from dysbiosis states as described previously [50,51]. In this regard, it would be important to elucidate phylogenetically, as well as structurally and physicochemically, the fucosidases of many other gut microorganism genera, as for instance Lactobacillus, Bacteroides, and Akkermansia, with the aim to reveal the whole gut fucosidase interaction.…”

Architecture Insight of Bifidobacterial α-L-Fucosidases

“…infantis fucosidases mentioned above can open a new perspective towards the synthesis of novel fucosylated conjugates by using different substrates beyond the lactose for synthetizing 2'-fucosyllactose. This vision is oriented towards the supply those novel fucosylated conjugates to adults in combination with fucosidase producer bifidobacteria in order to maintain a healthy microbiota or to reestablish it from dysbiosis states as described previously [40,41]. In this regard, it would be important to elucidate phylogenetically as well as structurally and physicochemically the fucosidases of many other gut microorganism genus as for instance Lactobacillus, Bacteroides, and Akkermansia with the aim to reveal the whole gut fucosidases interaction.…”