title: Isolation of bifidobacteria for blood group secretor status targeted personalised nutrition.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Currently, there is a constant need to find microbial products for maintaining or even improving host microbiota balance that could be targeted to a selected consumer group. Blood group secretor status, determining the ABO status, could be used to stratify the consumer group.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We have applied a validated upper intestinal tract model (TIM-1) and culturing methods to screen potential probiotic bacteria from faeces of blood secretor and non-secretor individuals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Faecal samples from healthy volunteers were pooled to age- and sex-matched secretor and non-secretor pools. Faecal pools were run through separate TIM-1 simulations, and bacteria were cultivated from samples taken at different stages of simulations for characterisation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Microbes in secretor pool survived the transit through TIM-1 system better than microbes of non-secretor pool, especially bifidobacteria and anaerobes were highly affected. The differences in numbers of bifidobacteria and lactobacilli isolates after plate cultivations and further the number of distinct RAPD-genotypes was clearly lower in non-secretor pool than in secretor pool.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In the present study, we showed that microbiota of secretor and non-secretor individuals tolerate gastrointestinal conditions differently and that a combination of gastrointestinal simulations and cultivation methods proved to be a promising tool for isolating potentially probiotic bacteria.
authors.affiliation: Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Harri
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mäkivuokko
authors.forename: Pirjo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wacklin
authors.forename: Marjorie E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Koenen
authors.forename: Karoliina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Laamanen
authors.forename: Noora
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Alakulppi
authors.forename: Koen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Venema
authors.forename: Jaana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mättö
keywords: ABO blood group; Bifidobacterium; gastrointestinal simulation; intestinal; non-secretor; probiotic screening; secretor