Abstract
Increasing evidence has indicated that oxidative stress is associated with the health of infants. Bifidobacterium, especially B. longum subsp. longum strains, are abundant in the gut microbiota of infants, which may have the potential to ameliorate oxidative damage. Thus, this study aimed to isolate and screen B. longum subsp. longum strains with probiotic characters and antioxidant properties as infants’ dietary supplements. In this study, 24 B. longum subsp. longum strains were isolated from 15 healthy infants identified via 16S rRNA and heat shock protein 60 (hsp60) sequences. B. longum subsp. longum B13, F2, K4, K5, K10, K13, and K15 strains were selected based on high values obtained from autoaggregation, hydrophobicity, and adhesion assays to HT-29 cells. Among these seven strains, B. longum subsp. longum F2, K5, K10, and K15 were selected according to the high tolerance of gastrointestinal tract conditions compared to Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12. Among these four strains, B. longum subsp. longum K5 was susceptible to common antibiotics and showed the highest intestinal epithelial cell proliferation of CCD 841 CoN. Additionally, B. longum subsp. longum K5 showed a strong antioxidant capacity, and its supernatant exhibited better activity of reducing power, hydroxyl radical scavenging, and DPPH radical scavenging than that of the intact cells with cell-free extracts. The findings indicated that B. longum subsp. longum K5 could be used as a probiotic candidate in infant nutrition.
Highlights
Oxidative stress has been closely linked to the health of infants, especially preterm infants (Cong et al, 2016)
The morphology of B. longum subsp. longum was shown in Figure 1C via scanning electron microscopy
The results demonstrated that all isolates belonged to Bifidobacterium, and 24 strains among them belonged to Bifidobacterium longum (Figure 2)
Summary
Oxidative stress has been closely linked to the health of infants, especially preterm infants (Cong et al, 2016). Preterm infants are vulnerable to oxidative damage because of the absence of antioxidants at birth and the impairment of the synthesis ability of antioxidants (Hanson et al, 2016). The undeveloped antioxidant defense system of infants may increase the risk for complications of intestinal and systemic anomalies, such as retinopathy of Potential Characters of B. longum prematurity, necrotizing enterocolitis, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (Weber et al, 2014). It has been reported that the level of oxidative stress of preterm infants was higher than that of full-term infants (Cai et al, 2019). Dietary antioxidants were related to reducing the risk of inflammation, diabetes, carcinogenesis, and other health problems associated with aging (Uttara et al, 2009). It is critical to find natural antioxidants which could apply in baby dietary supplements
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