Recent trends in the biotechnology of functional non-digestible oligosaccharides with prebiotic potential.

Prebiotics as a part of dietary nutrition can play a crucial role in structuring the composition and metabolic function of intestinal microbiota and can thus help in managing a clinical scenario by preventing diseases and/or improving health. Among the different prebiotics, non-digestible carbohydrates are molecules that selectively enrich a typical class of bacteria with probiotic potential. This review summarizes the current knowledge about the different aspects of prebiotics, such as its production, characterization and purification by various techniques, and its link to novel product development at an industrial scale for wide-scale use in diverse range of health management applications.

Mining the landfill soil metagenome for denitrifying methanotrophic taxa and validation of methane oxidation in microcosm.

In the present study, the microbial community residing at different depths of the landfill was characterized to assess their roles in serving as a methane sink. Physico-chemical characterization revealed the characteristic signatures of anaerobic degradation of organic matter in the bottom soil (50-60 cm) and, active process of aerobic denitrification in the top soil (0-10 cm). This was also reflected from the higher abundance of bacterial domain in the top soil metagenome represented by dominant phyla Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria which are prime decomposers of organic matter in landfill soils.