title: Adhesion of Bifidobacterium spp. to human intestinal mucus.
abstract: Twenty-four Bifidobacterium strains were examined for their ability to bind to immobilized human and bovine intestinal mucus glycoproteins. Each of the tested bacteria exhibited its characteristic adhesion to human and bovine fecal mucus. No significant differences were found among the taxonomic species. Among the tested bacteria, B. adolescentis, B. angulatum, B. bifidum, B. breve, B. catenulatum, B. infantis, B. longum and B. pseudocatenulatum adhered to human fecal mucus better than bovine fecal mucus, while the binding of B. animalis and B. lactis was not preferential. These results suggest that the mucosal adhesive properties of bifidobacteria may be a strain dependent feature, and the mucosal binding of the human bifidobacteria may be more host specific.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry, University of Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Ouwehan
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hashimoto
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Isolauri
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Benno
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Salminen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001422:Bacterial Adhesion; D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000502:physiology*; D002417:Cattle; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000382:microbiology*; D009093:Mucus / Q000382:microbiology*; D013045:Species Specificity