Abstract
Probiotics are increasingly recognized as capable of positively modulating several aspects of human health. There are numerous attributes that make an ideal probiotic. Lactiplantibacillus plantarum (Lp) exhibits an ecological and metabolic flexibility that allows it to thrive in a variety of environments. The present review will highlight the genetic and functional characteristics of Lp that make it an ideal probiotic and summarizes the current knowledge about its potential application as a prophylactic or therapeutic intervention.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Microbial Immunology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Microbiology
While probiotics have been used in some capacity for centuries, the first report of their proposed health benefits was published more than 100 years ago by Elie Metchnikoff, suggesting that optimizing the composition of intestinal microbes would have a positive effect on health (Metchnikoff, 1907)
Wang and colleagues demonstrated that administration of L. plantarum to piglets significantly counteracted or prevented increases in gut permeability induced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (Wang J. et al, 2018)
Summary
Lactiplantibacillus plantarum is a gram-positive lactic acid bacteria species. L. plantarum exhibits ecological and metabolic adaptability and is capable of inhabiting a range of ecological niches including fermented foods, meats, plants, and the mammalian gastro-intestinal tract (Filannino et al, 2018). This typically occurs through a process of genome decay in unutilized genes and enrichment of those that impart habitatspecific fitness This adaptive process generally ensures that individual bacterial strains isolated from the same ecological niche cluster genetically and carry similar niche specific genetic signatures. The evolutionary history of this bacterial species does not appear to be directly related to the features of the niches from which they were isolated This suggests that, unlike most Lactobacillus species, L. plantarum may acquire and preserve functional characteristics that are not solely determined by a single habitat (Martino et al, 2016; Filannino et al, 2018). L. plantarum maintains a diverse functional genome that facilitates a metabolic flexibility that allows it to colonize a variety of environments (Martino et al, 2016; Filannino et al, 2018; Inglin et al, 2018)
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