Abstract
Much attention has been recently paid to the health benefits of synbiotics, a combination of probiotics and prebiotics. In this study, synbiotics were prepared by combining lactic acid bacteria with potential as probiotics and purified glucooligosaccharides, and their immunostimulatory activity was evaluated using RAW 264.7 macrophage cells. A lactic acid bacteria strain with high antioxidant activity, acid and bile salt tolerance, adhesion to Caco-2 cells, and nitric oxide (NO) production was selected as a potential probiotic strain. The selected strain, isolated from forsythia, was identified as Lactococcus lactis SG-030. The purified glucooligosaccharides produced from Weissella cibaria YRK005 were used as prebiotics. RAW 264.7 cells were treated with synbiotics in two ways. One way was a simultaneous treatment with lactic acid bacteria and glucooligosaccharides. The other way was to pre-culture the lactic acid bacteria with glucooligosaccharides followed by treatment with synbiotic culture broth or synbiotic culture supernatant. In both cases, synbiotics synergistically increased NO production in RAW 264.7 cells. In addition, synbiotics treatment increased the expression of tissue necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and inducible nitric oxide synthase genes. Synbiotics also increased the expression of P38, extracellular signal-regulated kinases, c-Jun N-terminal kinases, phosphoinositide 3-kinase, and Akt proteins. The results confirmed that the synbiotics prepared in this study exhibited synergistic immunostimulatory activity.
Highlights
Research on probiotics, prebiotics, and their combination, synbiotics, has been actively conducted along with microbiome research because of their beneficial health functions
The lactic acid bacteria strains with high antioxidant activity, acid tolerance, bile salt tolerance, adhesion to Caco-2 intestinal cells, and nitric oxide (NO) production were screened among 972 lactic acid bacteria strains isolated in our laboratory to select lactic acid bacteria strains with potential probiotic properties
MAPKs, and were the highest in cells treated with synbiotic culture broth (Figure 5b). These results indicated that synbiotics combined with oligosaccharides and L. lactis SG030 induced phosphorylation of Akt, phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K), P38, ERK1/2, and Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and activated those cytokines
Summary
Research on probiotics, prebiotics, and their combination, synbiotics, has been actively conducted along with microbiome research because of their beneficial health functions. In 2001, the FAO and WHO defined probiotics as live microorganisms which confer health benefits on the host when administered in adequate amounts [1]. Probiotics stimulate and modulate the immune system of the host by activating specific genes in localized host cells [3]. Health benefits such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and antihypertensive activities have been reported [4]. Prebiotics refers to some non-digestible but fermentable dietary carbohydrates that can selectively stimulate certain bacteria in the colon, such as bifidobacteria and lactobacilli, considered beneficial to humans. Prebiotics are defined as non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activating the metabolism of one or a limited number of health-promoting bacteria in the intestinal tract, improving host health [6].
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