title: Enumeration, isolation, and identification of bifidobacteria from infant feces.
abstract: Thirty-three fully breast-fed infants aged between 1 and 12 weeks were screened for bifidobacteria in feces. Bifidobacteria counts in most fecal samples determined both by TPY agar and FISH procedure ranged from 10(8) to 10(11) CFU/g. Three infants did not contain any bifidobacteria in their fecal samples. One child was delivered by caesarean section and the other two by normal vaginal delivery. All bifidobacteria-free infants possessed Gram-positive regular rods as a major group of their fecal flora. These bacteria were identified as clostridia using genus-specific FISH probe. In bifidobacteria-positive samples, B. longum (57.9% of the samples) was the most frequently found species, followed by B. adolescentis (31.6%), B. bifidum (21.0%), B. breve (10.5%), B. pseudocatenulatum (5.3%), and B. dentium (5.3%).
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, Czech University of Agriculture Prague, 165 21 Prague, Czechia. vlkova@af.czu.cz
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vlková
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rada
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bujnáková
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kmet
mesh_terms: D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D001942:Breast Feeding; D003013:Clostridium / Q000302:isolation & purification; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology*; D006801:Humans; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn