2024/08/04 by Florac De Bruyn, Kieran James, Geoffrey Cottenet +2 · 1 voice
Nursing · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Infant Nutrition and Health #Probiotics and Fermented Foods #Gut microbiota and health
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s42003-024-06628-1
openalex publication_date 2024/08/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
To enhance health benefits, a probiotic can be co-administered with a metabolizable prebiotic forming a synergistic synbiotic. We assessed the synergies resulting from combining Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis LMG 11588 and an age-adapted blend of six human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) in ex vivo colonic incubation bioreactors seeded with fecal background microbiota from infant and toddler donors. When HMOs were combined with B. infantis LMG 11588, they were rapidly and completely consumed. This resulted in increased short chain fatty acid (SCFA) production compared to the summed SCFA production from individual ingredients (synergy). Remarkably, HMOs were partially consumed for specific infant donors in the absence of B. infantis LMG 11588, yet all donors showed increased SCFA production upon B. infantis LMG 11588 supplementation. We found specific bacterial taxa associated with the differential response pattern to HMOs. Our study shows the importance of carefully selecting pre- and probiotic into a synergistic synbiotic that could benefit infants. An ex vivo study shows that B. infantis synergistically increases short chain fatty acid production when combined with a mix of HMOs. Where HMOs were partially consumed by fecal background microbiota, full consumption was achieved upon B. infantis supplementation.