Probioticos x Nutrica

LEBLANC, JEAN GUY

Congreso; 28° Congresso Brasileiro de Microbiologia; 2015

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 the 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 recently gained attention of the scientific community. Food-related lactic acid bacteria (LAB) as well as human gut commensals such as bifidobacteria can de novo synthesize and supply vitamins. This is important since humans lack the biosynthetic capacity for most vitamins and these must thus be provided exogenously. Although vitamins are present in a variety of foods, deficiencies still occur, mainly due to malnutrition as a result of insufficient food intake and because of poor eating habits. Fermented foods with high levels of B group vitamins (such as folate and riboflavin) can be produced by the adequate selection of starter cultures and could be a cost-effective alternative to current vitamin fortification programs. In order to identify technologically interesting LAB with the capacity to produce vitamins, many screening trials have been performed in a wide variety of ecological niches, such as traditional fermented foods, plants, and the gastrointestinal tract of different animals including humans. Also, because many LAB are currently being used as probiotics, the evaluation of their vitamin biosynthetic capacities is also gaining interest in the scientific community. In addition, the use of genetic engineering strategies to increase vitamin production in strains with technological or probiotic characteristics or to create novel vitamin producing strains is also a viable solution for vitamin deficiencies. From another point of view, it has recently been shown that some commensal bacteria in the human gut, especially bifidobacteria, can de novo synthesize and supply vitamins to their host. Thus, 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.