Prebiotic effect of soluble fibres from modern and old durum-type wheat varieties on Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains.
BACKGROUND
Wheat grains are a rich source of dietary fibres, particularly in the western human diet. Many of the health effects attributed to dietary fibres are believed to be related to their microbial fermentation in the gut. This study evaluated the ability of two potentially probiotic strains, Lactobacillus plantarum L12 and Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum B7003, to ferment soluble dietary fibres (SDFs) from modern and ancient durum-type wheat grains.


RESULTS
Fibre microbial utilisation was highly variable and dependent on the strain. SDFs from the varieties Svevo and Solex supported the growth of L. plantarum L12 the best, whereas those from the varieties Anco Marzio, Solex and Kamut(®) Khorasan were good carbohydrate substrates for B. pseudocatenulatum B7003. The highest prebiotic activity scores (describing the extent to which prebiotics support selective growth of probiotics) for B7003 were obtained with SDFs from the varieties Solex (0.57), Kamut(®) Khorasan (0.56) and Iride (0.55), whereas for L12 the highest scores were achieved with the varieties Orobel (0.63), Kamut(®) Khorasan (0.56) and Solex (0.53).


CONCLUSIONS
The present study has identified some SDFs from durum-type wheat grains as suitable prebiotic substrates for the selective proliferation of B. pseudocatenulatum B7003 and L. plantarum L12 in vitro. The results provide the basis for the potential utilisation of wheat-based prebiotics as a component of synbiotic formulations.
Department of Agroenvironmental Science and Technology, University of Bologna, Viale Fanin 44, I-40127 Bologna, Italy. ilaria.marotti@unibo.it
Ilaria
I
Marotti
Valeria
V
Bregola
Irene
I
Aloisio
Diana
D
Di Gioia
Sara
S
Bosi
Raffaella
R
Di Silvestro
Robert
R
Quinn
Giovanni
G
Dinelli
D001644:Bifidobacterium / Q000378:metabolism*; D004043:Dietary Fiber / Q000378:metabolism*; D005285:Fermentation; D006801:Humans; D007778:Lactobacillus / Q000378:metabolism*; D056692:Prebiotics; D019936:Probiotics; D012639:Seeds / Q000737:chemistry; D013045:Species Specificity; D058616:Synbiotics; D014908:Triticum / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification
D004043:Dietary Fiber; D056692:Prebiotics