Isolation of bifidobacteria for blood group secretor status targeted personalised nutrition

• Main Authors: Harri Mäkivuokko, Pirjo Wacklin, Marjorie E. Koenen, Karoliina Laamanen, Noora Alakulppi, Koen Venema, Jaana Mättö
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2012-06-01
• Series: Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease
• Subjects: gastrointestinal simulation; probiotic screening; Bifidobacterium; intestinal; ABO blood group; secretor; non-secretor
• Online Access: http://www.microbecolhealthdis.net/index.php/mehd/article/view/18578/22515

Background: Currently, there is a constant need to find microbial products for maintaining or even improving host microbiota balance that could be targeted to a selected consumer group. Blood group secretor status, determining the ABO status, could be used to stratify the consumer group. Objective: We have applied a validated upper intestinal tract model (TIM-1) and culturing methods to screen potential probiotic bacteria from faeces of blood secretor and non-secretor individuals. Design: Faecal samples from healthy volunteers were pooled to age- and sex-matched secretor and non-secretor pools. Faecal pools were run through separate TIM-1 simulations, and bacteria were cultivated from samples taken at different stages of simulations for characterisation. Results: Microbes in secretor pool survived the transit through TIM-1 system better than microbes of non-secretor pool, especially bifidobacteria and anaerobes were highly affected. The differences in numbers of bifidobacteria and lactobacilli isolates after plate cultivations and further the number of distinct RAPD-genotypes was clearly lower in non-secretor pool than in secretor pool. Conclusions: In the present study, we showed that microbiota of secretor and non-secretor individuals tolerate gastrointestinal conditions differently and that a combination of gastrointestinal simulations and cultivation methods proved to be a promising tool for isolating potentially probiotic bacteria.