Degradation of Guar Gum by Intestinal Bacteria

Abstract

Guar gum is widely used in the food industry as a thickening agent. Guar and other galactomannans are ingested as a normal part of the human diet. Guar is completely degraded in the large intestine. Often large amounts of gas are produced. The objective of the study was to determine which species are responsible for the degradation of guar in the GI tract. It was observed that only a limited number of species is able to degrade and ferment guar. Guar degrading strains could be isolated from faecal samples of all volunteers and in 90% of the saliva of volunteers. The main species isolated from humans were Bifidobacterium dentium and Clostridium butyricum. From several samples of animal faeces Streptococcus bovis could be isolated. In addition some strains of Bacteroides ovatus were able to degrade guar to a limited extent. Fermentation resulted in the production of short-chain fatty acids and, when CL butyricum was present, in a large gas production. Competition experiments showed that Cl. butyricum degrades guar faster than both other species under simulated physiological conditions. It was concluded that Cl. butyricum is the main guar degrading species and the causative agent of the gas formation after guar intake.

Guar gum: processing, properties and food applications—A Review

“…Guar is completely degraded in the large intestine by Clostridium butyricum (Hartemink et al 1999). Harmful effects are observed only when the guar gum is given to the animals at a high concentration of about 10-15% on weight basis.…”

Evaluation of the prebiotic potential of arabinoxylans from brewer’s spent grain

“…Faeces were collected into sterile AX arabinoxylans, AG arabinogalactans, DP degree of polymerisation, DB degree of branching, FA fermentation assay vials, kept in an anaerobic cabinet and used within a maximum of 2 h after collection. Faecal inocula (FI) was prepared by dilution in a reduced physiological salt solution (RPS: cysteine-HCl 0.5 g/L and NaCl 8.5 g/L) to obtain a concentration of 100 g faeces/L RPS at pH 6.8, following the methodology previously described (Hartemink et al 1999). …”

A novel dissolution method for evaluation of polysaccharide based colon specific delivery systems: A suitable alternative to animal sacrifice

“…Various strains of Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium and Saccharomyces have been demonstrated to metabolize polysaccharides like guar gum, pectin and amylose etc. (Gainvors and Belarbi, 1995;Hartermink et al, 1999;Szwajgier and Jakubczyk, 2011).…”