CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), widely used as starter cultures for the fermentation of a large variety of foods, can improve the safety, shelf life, nutritional value, flavour and overall quality of fermented products. In this regard, the selection of strains delivering health-promoting compounds (such as nutraceuticals) is the main goal of several studies. Among these studies, vitamin production by LAB has gained attention of the scientific community. Although most LAB are auxotrophic for several vitamins, it is now known that certain strains have the capability to synthesize B-group vitamins. Since humans cannot synthesize most vitamins, they have to be provided exogenously through diet or pharmaceutical products. Although most vitamins are present in a variety of foods, vitamin deficiencies still exist in many countries not only as a result of insufficient food intake but also because of unbalanced diets or physiological states such as pregnancy or old age. Thus, LAB are the ideal candidates to deliver vitamins, among other specific compounds, into foods or produce them in situ in the gut. Certain fermented products have been bio-enriched with B-group vitamins, such as folates, riboflavin and cobalamin, due to the use of vitamin-producing LAB. On the other hand, it has recently been shown that some commensal bacteria in the human gut, especially bifidobacteria, can synthesize vitamins de novo and supply these oligoelements to the host. In this chapter, the use of B-group vitamin-producing LAB in the design of novel functional foods will be discussed as will their potential role as part of the commensal microbiota to deliver vitamins in situ; both strategies are important in order to help in the prevention of vitamin deficiencies.