Validated HPAEC-PAD method for prebiotics determination in synbiotic fermented milks during shelf life.

Interest concerning functional food has been growing in recent years, and much attention has been focused on the choice of prebiotic fibers and probiotic microorganisms added to food products with the aim of improving health, producing synbiotic products. In the work reported here, an innovative analytical method performed by high-performance anion-exchange chromatography (HPAEC) with pulsed electrochemical detection has been optimized and validated for application to the study of prebiotic effects in synbiotic fermented milk prepared by addition of probiotics. The proposed method permits the evaluation of fructooligosaccharides and inulooligosaccharides with degrees of polymerization of 6-7 and 4-7, respectively.

Exploring the diversity of the bifidobacterial population in the human intestinal tract.

Although the health-promoting roles of bifidobacteria are widely accepted, the diversity of bifidobacteria among the human intestinal microbiota is still poorly understood. We performed a census of bifidobacterial populations from human intestinal mucosal and fecal samples by plating them on selective medium, coupled with molecular analysis of selected rRNA gene sequences (16S rRNA gene and internally transcribed spacer [ITS] 16S-23S spacer sequences) of isolated colonies. A total of 900 isolates were collected, of which 704 were shown to belong to bifidobacteria.