Antimicrobial Activity of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Dairy Products and Gut: Effect on Pathogens

Abstract

The food industry seeks alternatives to satisfy consumer demands of safe foods with a long shelf-life able to maintain the nutritional and organoleptic quality. The application of antimicrobial compounds-producing protective cultures may provide an additional parameter of processing in order to improve the safety and ensure food quality, keeping or enhancing its sensorial characteristics. In addition, strong evidences suggest that certain probiotic strains can confer resistance against infection with enteric pathogens. Several mechanisms have been proposed to support this phenomenon, including antimicrobial compounds secreted by the probiotics, competitive exclusion, or stimulation of the immune system. Recent research has increasingly demonstrated the role of antimicrobial compounds as protective mechanism against intestinal pathogens and therefore certain strains could have an effect on both the food and the gut. In this aspect, the effects of the combination of different strains keep unknown. The development of multistrain probiotic dairy products with good technological properties and with improved characteristics to those shown by the individual strains, able to act not only as protective cultures in foods, but also as probiotics able to exert a protective action against infections, has gained increased interest.

Antimicrobial Activity of Lactic Acid Bacteria against Toxigenic Fungi

“…In addition, poultry for human consumption is generally fed on cereals or their products (Pinho and Furlong, 2000). Arqués et al, (2015) studied antimicrobial activity of lactic acid bacteria in dairy products and gut and their effect on pathogens.…”

“…There was a predominance of Aspergillus species during storage period of coffee beans (Arqués et al, 2015). Therefore, growth of the fungus in cereal crops could affect humans not only after consumption of infected cereals, but also after chicken consumption.…”

Activity of metabolites produced by new strains of Lactobacillus in modified de Man, Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) medium against multidrug-resistant bacteria

“…Several studies have been published on antimicrobial activity of lactic acid produced by lactobacilli against pathogen microorganisms (Şanlıbaba and Güçer, 2015;Arqués et al, 2015;Sgibnev and Kremleva, 2016). The antimicrobial activity of organic acids is directly related to the pH reduction and its ability to dissociate.…”

“…An estimate of between 100 million and 30 billion dollars is being spent annually to treat these kinds of infections, for which therapy is limited to the use of few antimicrobial agents that are often ineffective. In this context, new searches for alternative therapeutic regimen, including the use of probiotics, are needed in order to handle complex infections (Arqués et al, 2015;Alexandre et al, 2014;Alexandre et al, 2013).…”

“…However, the effect of different concentrations of this surfactant on the metabolism of carbohydrates as well as the antibacterial activity of CFSs against MRSA and KPC strains are still under explored (Mariam et al, 2014;Arqués et al, 2015).…”