Abstract
Over the last few decades, a wealth of evidence has formed the basis for “the Old Friends hypothesis” suggesting that, in contrast to the past, increasingly people are living in environments with limited and less diverse microbial exposure, with potential consequences for their health. Hence, including safe live or heat‐killed microbes in the diet may be beneficial in promoting and maintaining human health. In order to assess the safety of microbes beyond the current use of standardized cultures and probiotic supplements, new approaches are being developed. Here, we present evidence for the safety of heat‐killed Mycolicibacterium aurum Aogashima as a novel food, utilizing the decision tree approach developed by Pariza and colleagues (2015). We provide evidence that the genome of M. aurum Aogashima is free of (1) genetic elements associated with pathogenicity or toxigenicity, (2) transferable antibiotic resistance gene DNA, and (3) genes coding for antibiotics used in human or veterinary medicine. Moreover, a 90‐day oral toxicity study in rats showed that (4) the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) was the highest concentration tested, namely 2000 μg/kg BW/day. We conclude that oral consumption of heat‐killed M. aurum Aogashima is safe and warrants further evaluation as a novel food ingredient.
Highlights
The interaction between the human host and nonpathogenic ubiquitous environmental microorganisms, present throughout human evolution, recently emerged as an area of scientific interest and has evolved into “the Old Friends hypothesis” (Flandroy et al, 2018; Lowry et al, 2016; Rook et al, 2004, 2013)
We present evidence for the safety of heat-killed Mycolicibacterium aurum Aogashima as a novel food ingredient
The safety of this novel food was determined using the decision tree approach developed by Pariza and colleagues which relies on assessment of lack of allergenicity risk, confirmation that resistance to various antimicrobials is intrinsic and nontransmissible and that no harmful effects are detected in standard toxicology testing (Pariza et al, 2015)
Summary
The interaction between the human host and nonpathogenic ubiquitous environmental microorganisms, present throughout human evolution, recently emerged as an area of scientific interest and has evolved into “the Old Friends hypothesis” (Flandroy et al, 2018; Lowry et al, 2016; Rook et al, 2004, 2013). We present evidence for the safety of heat-killed Mycolicibacterium aurum Aogashima as a novel food ingredient This is an environmental saprophytic organism which may not have the documented history of safe use that food-associated probiotics have, but is likely to have been evolutionarily present in the diet, through exposure to untreated and even treated water supplies. The safety of this novel food was determined using the decision tree approach developed by Pariza and colleagues which relies on assessment of lack of allergenicity risk, confirmation that resistance to various antimicrobials is intrinsic and nontransmissible and that no harmful effects are detected in standard toxicology testing (Pariza et al, 2015). Allergenicity assessment AnƟmicrobial resistance gene assessment Pathogenic gene cluster and virulence factor assessment
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