Introduction:
Prebiotics have been shown to significantly impact gut microbiota composition, viability and metabolic activity. The prebiotic potential of microbial-fructo-oligosaccharides (microbial-FOS) produced by a newly isolated strain of Aspergillus ibericus in co-culture with a Saccharomyces cerevisiae YIL162W was herein evaluated.
Methods:
Microbial-FOS were in vitro fermented by human faeces of five healthy volunteers in anaerobic batch cultures for 24 h. Fermentations were also run with a non-microbial commercial FOS sample Raftilose® P95. During fermentation, the dynamic bacterial population changes were assessed by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR), and the production of short chain fatty acids (SCFA) and sugar consumption by HPLC. Microbial-FOS chemical structure was characterized by gas chromatography quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC-qMS).
Results and Discussion:
Microbial-FOS significantly stimulated the growth of Bifidobacteria probiotic strains, triggering a beneficial effect on gut microbiota composition. A great amount of total SCFA was produced by microbial-FOS fermentation as compared to the commercial-FOS, particularly propionate and butyrate. Inulin neoseries oligosaccharides (e.g., neokestose) were only identified in the microbial-FOS sample, which may explain their different functionalities.
Conclusion:
FOS produced by A. ibericus exhibit promising potential as nutraceutical ingredients for gut microbiota modulation.Acknowledgements: The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) for PhD Grants (SFRH/BD/139884/2018, SFRH/BD/136471/2018 and SFRH/BD/111884/2015) and funding under UIDB/04469/2020, UIDB/50016/2020, UIDB/50006/2020, UIDP/50006/2020, Project ColOsH PTDC/BTM-SAL/30071/2017 and AgriFood XXI (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000041).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
