Synbiotic Matchmaking in Lactobacillus plantarum: Substrate Screening and Gene-Trait Matching To Characterize Strain-Specific Carbohydrate Utilization.

Synbiotics are food supplements that combine probiotics and prebiotics to synergistically elicit a health effect in humans. exhibits remarkable genetic and phenotypic diversity, in particular in strain-specific carbohydrate utilization capacities, and several strains are marketed as probiotics. We have screened 77 strains for their abilities to utilize specific prebiotic fibers, revealing variable and strain-specific growth efficiencies on isomalto- and galactooligosaccharides.