Probiotic Potential of Lactic Acid Starter Cultures Isolated from a Traditional Fermented Sorghum-Millet Beverage.

The purpose of this study was to establish the probiotic potential of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) starter cultures, MNC 21, MNC 24, and MNC 20, isolated from a traditionally fermented sorghum-millet beverage from Uganda. The cultures were examined for tolerance to acid and bile salts, bile salt hydrolase (BSH) activity, antibiotic susceptibility, biogenic amine production, mucin degradation, hydrophobicity, auto-aggregation, adherence to the ileum, coaggregation, and antimicrobial properties against selected pathogenic species. yoba 2012, a known probiotic, was the reference. The isolates were tolerant to acid (pH = 3) and bile (1%). . MNC 20 and . MNC 21 exhibited medium BSH activity (11-15 mm diameter of hydrolysis zone) while . and . yoba 2012 exhibited low BSH activity (<10 mm diameter of hydrolysis zone). All isolates lacked mucolytic activity. . MNC 21 and . MNC 20 produced agmatine. The candidate and reference microorganisms were resistant to 10 of 21 and 5 of 21 antibiotics, respectively. The isolates exhibited hydrophobic, auto-aggregation and coaggregation properties. These three properties were exhibited more ( < 0.05) by the reference than the potential probiotics. The ability of the potential probiotics to attach onto the goat ileum (7.3-8.0 log cfu/cm) was comparable to that of . yoba 2012 (7.6 log cfu/cm). The four LAB inhibited , , and to the same extent ( < 0.05). The findings indicated potential probiotic activity of the starter cultures. However, further examination of these isolates is required to confirm their probiotic capabilities.