Fermentations of fructo-oligosaccharides and their components byBifidobacterium infantisATCC 15697 on batch culture in semi-synthetic medium

Abstract

Aims: To compare the physiological behaviour of Bi®dobacterium infantis ATCC 15697 growing on synthetic oligofructose or its components. Methods and Results: The studies were carried out in regulated or non-regulated batch cultures on semi-synthetic media. Differences between the carbohydrate utilization patterns with glucose, fructose, sucrose and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) were determined. Glucose was the preferred substrate for growth and biomass production, whereas fructose was the best for lactate and acetate production. With sucrose, biomass production reached the level obtained with glucose, whereas with FOS, more metabolites were produced, as with fructose. In a mixture of FOS, the shorter saccharides were used ®rst and fructose was released in the medium. Fructofuranosidase, an enzyme necessary to hydrolyse FOS, was inducible by fructose. Conclusions: Glucose contained in FOS and sucrose might sustain growth and cell production, while fructose might enable the production of major metabolites. Signi®cance and Impact of the Study: A better understanding of the bi®dogenic nature of oligofructose has been gained.

Effect of acquired resistance to bile salts on enzymatic activities involved in the utilisation of carbohydrates by bifidobacteria. An overview

“…As a whole, the derivative produced more organic acids than its original strain in maltose whereas, conversely, the original strain produced more organic acids than its derivative in glucose. In contrast to previous data reported by other researchers [31,38], we obtained for both the original and bile-resistant derivative more organic acids in media promoting faster rather than slower growth. This could be due to the fact that we compared a disaccharide (maltose) with its corresponding monosaccharide constituent (glucose), whereas other studies were done with carbohydrates of different composition [31,38].…”

“…There has been considerable research in the last few years on the use of different oligosaccharides by bifidobacteria, fructooligosaccharides and galacto-oligosaccharides being the most studied [12,24,30,31,38]. Short oligosaccharides are in general better substrates for growth than monosaccharides or polysaccharides [7,15,17,18,31,38,39].…”

“…Short oligosaccharides are in general better substrates for growth than monosaccharides or polysaccharides [7,15,17,18,31,38,39]. The ability to degrade these molecules has been related to the presence in the cell of the corresponding glycoside-hydrolysing activities [12,17,21,29,39].…”

“…The major organic acids produced by bifidobacteria are acetic and lactic acids (theoretical acetic to lactic molar ratio of 1.5 when grown on glucose) and lower amounts of formic acid and ethanol can also be formed during fermentation. In spite of the need for more and deeper studies on kinetics of bifidobacteria grown on different carbohydrates, the results obtained by Perrin et al [31] and van der Meulen et al [38] suggest that for a particular microorganism, slower growth results in the production of larger amounts of organic acids. Generally, more lactic acid is produced by a given strain in the early stages of fermentation, and this production decreases later [21,38], whereas old cultures produce more formic acid at the expense of lactic acid formation [29,38].…”

Prebiotics in Chronic Intestinal Inflammation

“…This mechanism has been reported in, e.g., Bifidobacterium infantis. 38 In addition, fermentation of nondigestible carbohydrates in the proximal colon results in a lower luminal pH, resulting in growth inhibition of Bacteroides spp, which fails to grow at pH lower than 5.5. 39 Prebiotic stimulation of intestinal microflora is not selective.…”