Xylooligosaccharides as prebiotics from biomass autohydrolyzate

Abstract

With an increased awareness of health and wellness, prebiotics have received a great amount of attention recently. In this study, autohydrolyzate from hot water treatment of Miscanthus lignocellulosic biomass was evaluated for its prebiotic effect by fermentation of Lactobacillus brevis strain. The cell growth on raw autohydrolyzate-supplemented media was comparable to the sample grown on glucose until an incubation time of 24 h then gradually declined. Autohydrolyzate contains various inhibitors (25.9% of total dissolved solids) and it was determined that dissolved lignin had a significant inhibitory effect to bacterial growth. When the autohydrolyzate was purified using a hydrophobic resin, purified autohydrolyzate exhibited high bacterial growth (cell density (OD 600) of 4.8) and high acid production (7.7 and 3.1 g/L of lactic and acetic acid, respectively), which was comparable with commercial xylooligosaccharides. In conclusion, mixed oligosaccharides in the autohydrolyzate from Miscanthus have considerable potential as a prebiotic and are comparable with commercial xylooligosaccharides derived products.