Bile Salt Degradation Activity of Probiotics

In-depth understanding of the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics is beneficial to clarify the potential harmful effects of probiotics on hosts and their rational development and use. Creative Enzymes has established a highly specialized testing platform to research the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics through our experienced researchers. We provide comprehensive and in-depth solutions to help our clients better understand the safety information of their probiotic products.

Effect of Probiotic Bile Salt Degradation Activity on The Host

The ability of probiotic strains to degrade bile salts is often included in the criteria for probiotic selection, and many bile salt hydrolases have been identified and characterized. Researches have shown that the degradation of bile salts by probiotics can reduce human serum cholesterol and have health benefits for humans. However, the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics may also cause harmful effects on the host. For example, unconjugated bile acids are less efficient than conjugated molecules in dietary lipid emulsification and micelle formation, so bile salt degradation activity may cause impaired digestion in the host. In addition, secondary bile acids produced by subsequent modification of unconjugated bile salts may cause DNA damage, promote colon cancer, or lead to impaired function of the colonic mucosa, resulting in diarrhea or inflammation.

Fig. 1 Bile salt hydrolases (BSH) act on circulating conjugated bile acids in the gut-liver axis. (Foley, 2019)

The safety of administering BSH-positive probiotic strains should be taken into account based on the potential adverse effects of large amounts of unconjugated bile salts on human hosts. Creative Enzymes incorporates the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics into the probiotic safety assessment, thus helping clients to better elucidate the possible harmful effects of the strains on the host.

Research on the Bile Salt Degradation Activity of Probiotics at Creative Enzymes

For prospective probiotic products, Creative Enzymes has developed a full range of services to support research on the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics.

Our bile salt degradation activity evaluation of probiotic strains mainly focuses on the following aspects:

• Clarify the exact function of the gastrointestinal microorganism bile salt degradation activity.
• To elucidate the fate of the end product of bile hydrolysis.
• Comparison of the action characteristics between the target BSH mutant strains and their homozygous parents.
• Examine the membrane properties of probiotic strains under bile salt or bile salt deficient conditions.
• The role played by strains surviving in the intestine is revealed through our animal testing platform.
• For the host, the impact of BSH-positive strains on the identified gut microflora was monitored by molecular techniques such as fluorescence in situ hybridization and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis.
• To clarify whether the increased levels of secondary bile acids in serum or bile are due to bile salt hydrolysis.

Creative Enzymes is a professional and experienced probiotic supplier and service provider. Our experienced scientific team works with you to provide customized solutions for evaluating the bile salt degradation activity of probiotics. To get more information, please contact us and we will be happy to serve your research demands.

Reference

1. Foley, M. H.; et al. Bile salt hydrolases: Gatekeepers of bile acid metabolism and host-microbiome crosstalk in the gastrointestinal tract. PLoS pathogens. 2019, 15(3): e1007581.