Bifidobacteria and Their Role as Members of the Human Gut Microbiota

By A. O’Callaghan, D. van Sinderen. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2016

982 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Members of the genus Bifidobacterium are among the first microbes to colonize the human gastrointestinal tract and are believed to exert positive health benefits on their host. Due to their purported health-promoting properties, bifidobacteria have been incorporated into many functional foods as active ingredients. Bifidobacteria naturally occur in a range of ecological niches that are either directly or indirectly connected to the animal gastrointestinal tract, such as the human oral cavity, the insect gut and sewage. To be able to survive in these particular ecological niches, bifidobacteria must possess specific adaptations to be competitive. Determination of genome sequences has revealed genetic attributes that may explain bifidobacterial ecological fitness, such as metabolic abilities, evasion of the host adaptive immune system and colonization of the host through specific appendages. However, genetic modification is crucial toward fully elucidating the mechanisms by which bifidobacteria exert their adaptive abilities and beneficial properties. In this review we provide an up to date summary of the general features of bifidobacteria, whilst paying particular attention to the metabolic abilities of this species. We also describe methods that have allowed successful genetic manipulation of bifidobacteria.

Subfields: Food Science, Molecular Biology, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2e30d3033ee2f36774cd64fd3fc1000c8c40d988

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Citations in the corpus

The human gut microbiome of early onset type 1 diabetes in the TEDDY study (2018, positive): “For example, L-lactate dehydrogenase (1.1.1.27), an enzyme well-characterized in Bifidobacteria for its role in milk fermentation 34 , was among the most consistently declining enzymes over this period, notably coinciding with breastfeeding cessation in many infants (from 73% breastfed at month 3…”
Gut Microbiome: Profound Implications for Diet and Disease (2019, result): “Other studies have confirmed that probiotic supplementation with bifidobacteria results in modest improvement of GI symptoms experienced in IBS-C and IBD patients [167,178].”