Bile Tolerance an Cholesterol Reduction in Enterococcus faecium, a Candidate Microorganism for use as Dietary Adjunct in Milk Products

TARANTO, MARIA PIA; GONZALEZ DE LLANO, DOLORES; RODRIGUEZ, ANA; RUIZ HOLGADO, AIDA; FONT DE VALDEZ, GRACIELA

MILCHWISSENSCHAFT-MILK SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL

A V A AGRARVERLAG

Año: 1996 vol. 51 p. 383 - 385

0026-3788

A study was carried out to test the ability of Enterococcus faecium to reduce cholesterol and to resist and deconjugate bile salts as well as to determine the relationship amongst the studied traits. Most of the tested strains proved to be resistant to 0.3% of bile salts. In general, the deconjugative activities detected were higher than 40 % for the 2 tested salts conjugated of cholic acid (sodium taurocholate and glycocholate). A direct relationship between the bile-resistant and bile-deconjugative phenotypes could not be established; the highest bile resistant strain did not show deconjugative activity, whereas the most bile sensitive strain demonstrated the better deconjugation. The capacity to reduce cholesterol from the media was a characteristic of each strain with values ranging from 12 to 56 %. This property was closely related to the deconjugative activity, but not to the bile resistant phenotype.