Journal of Food Processing & Technology

New trends in probiotics: Exploring the probiotic potential of Streptococcus thermophilus, a lactic acid bacterium usually employed in food/dairy industry

International Conference on Food Safety and Regulatory Measures

August 17-19, 2015 Birmingham, UK

Maira Junjua

COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Pakistan

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Probiotics are live micro-organisms that when administered in adequate amount, confer health benefits to the host like, relief in lactose in-tolerance and constipation, prevention and cures diarrhea, anti-microbial, anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic activities, stimulation of immune system and alleviation of urogenital health incidences. A probiotic should be capable of resisting the acids and bile salts in gastrointestinal tract, should transit through the gut in viable form and be recovered in feces, resist the degradation by digestive enzymes and oxygen stress, must be safe with demonstrable efficacy and should be able to reach the distal tract in viable form. Now-a-days consumerâ??s interest for neutraceuticals and functional foods is directly related to their interest in maintaining good health. At present yogurt is of wide importance, due to its high scale consumption. It has been successfully used in therapeutic studies against diarrhea, hyper-tension and lactose intolerance and it has been used for maintaining intestinal microbial balance. Streptococcus thermophilus is one of the basic starter bacteria of yogurt and the second most important species of industrial lactic acid bacteria after Lactococcus lactis. It could have great probiotic potential as it has been shown to survive gastro-intestinal transit and moderately adhere to the intestinal epithelial cells. It is capable of producing β-galactosidase, thus playing a vital role in reducing lactose intolerance. Besides, it is capable of producing anti-microbial substances like bacteriocins and exopolysaccharides which not only confer rheological, textural and sensory properties to yogurts, but also increase the adhesion of the bacterium to enterocytes and stimulate the immune system. It possesses many peptidolytic and proteolytic enzymes capable of generating bioactive peptides and enhancing mucin secretions. Thus, the health benefits of yogurt combined with the functional properties of S. thermophilus could represent an advantage over other probiotic functional foods and could be enhanced by increasing the research done on its properties of survival in the host and its other probiotic properties.

Biography :

Email: maira.junjua@comsats.edu.pk