Bacterial strains from local curd, ice-cream and natural milk cultures as potential probiotic candidate: Isolation, characterization and in vitro analysis

Abstract

The Probiotics are the live feed supplements basically in the form of microorganisms that cause potential benefit to health. It is implicit in the definition that consumption of the probiotics beneficially affects the intestinal microflora. It has been reported of utilization of Probiotics in curing severe gastronomical diseases. The basic facility of producing Probiotics is that it does not require high input, and thus can be produced at a cheaper cost. Microorganism can be grown with minimal food nutrients and can be used to harvest a lot of output in terms of nutritional value and other medicinal benefits. The biggest challenge to use live feed supplement for human is the fear of antibiotic resistance transference to the gut flora. The evaluation of existing strains to develop a strong probiotic product is important because it is difficult to enhance the strains genetically which uses antibiotic resistance as a marker for selection of the modified strains. The present investigations are to identify the various bacterial strains commonly present in daily food materials and to evaluate their probiotic potential in-vitro. Specifically, the strains were isolated from ice cream, curd and milk for developing safe probiotic strains. The strains were identified, characterized and named as SJ1 (Streptococcus lactis), SJ2 (Bacillus coagulans) , SJ3 (Lactobacillus casei) and SJ5 (Bifidobacterium bifidum). One more strain, Streptococcus thermophilus (NCIM 2412) was procured and tested for its probiotic potential as reported in various existing studies. Probiotic parameters such as acidity tolerance, bile tolerance, lactic acid production, adherence capability and phenol tolerance were evaluated. The strains were also passed through an artificial simulation of gastronomical pathway to ensure their survivability in the harsh in-vivo conditions. Minimal antibiotic resistance is an important factor that was tested on all strains isolated so as to minimize the antibiotic resistance transference to the already existing gut flora. Out of the above mentioned strains, Streptococcus thermophillus, Streptococcus lactis and Bifidobacterium bifidum showed a great potential to be developed as Probiotics. Probiotics is the next generation product of biochemical engineering with enormous scope in studies and commercial utilization. Copyright © 2009 by New Century Health Publishers, LLC.