Abstract
The importance of functional foods added with probiotics and prebiotics is directly related with the promotion of the health benefits of human. In this study the survival of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG in a semi-ripened cheese added with agave juice, was determined. Cheese ripening was carried out at 14 °C for 35 days. The pH changes were measured and the hydrolysis of the protein was evaluated through the analysis of free amino groups by the trinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (TNBS) method and SDS-PAGE polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. At the end of the study, in the symbiotic cheese, the viability of the probotic was increased in two logarithmic cycles (from 6.73 to 8.72 log CFU). A more active proteolytic process was observed with the addition of agave juice, due to the high production of low molecular weight peptides and the concentration of free amino groups (8.63 mg/L). The pH did not have a significant difference between the control and the cheese studied. With the obtained results, it is seen that agave juice is an ingredient that can be added to semi ripening cheeses with the objective of improving the survival capacity of probiotic microorganisms, which are used as starters.
Highlights
During the last decade, the importance of foods added with probiotics has been demonstrated with benefits that range from the activation of the immune system to mechanisms against diarrheas associated with antibiotics (Orsi & Zambrini, 2017)
Agave juice contains a considerable amount of polysaccharides of more than two units, so it can be considered as a prebiotic (Rodríguez-Huezo et al, 2007)
Peptides between 8.8 and 9.5 kDa could be observed throughout the ripening process, but their concentration decreased during this time. These results showed that the accumulation of low molecular weight peptides is related to the ripening time and proteolytic activity that the presence of a prebiotic, in this case agave juice, exerts on the probiotic (Jaimez-Ordaz et al, 2018; Martínez-Gutiérrez et al, 2017)
Summary
The importance of foods added with probiotics has been demonstrated with benefits that range from the activation of the immune system to mechanisms against diarrheas associated with antibiotics (Orsi & Zambrini, 2017). A probiotic is defined as a living microorganism that actively improves the health of consumers, balancing the intestinal microflora when they are consumed viable and in sufficient concentrations (from 106 to 109 colony forming units (CFU / mL) (Vinderola et al, 2019). Oligosaccharides are added to probiotic foods that promote the development and survival of probiotic bacteria (Costa et al, 2019; Jaimez-Ordaz et al, 2018). These oligosaccharides are called prebiotic, which are non-digestible carbohydrates that when are consumed, selectively stimulates the growth of a limited number of bacteria in the colon promoting the survival of probiotic bacteria (Quigley, 2019). Probiotics and prebiotics have been defined as symbiotic (Guarner et al, 2012), this term should be reserved exclusively to products in which symbiosis has been scientifically proven (Sanders et al, 2019) and could be considered as nutraceutical (Sarfraz et al, 2019, Shafi et al, 2019)
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