Shared mechanisms among probiotic taxa: implications for general probiotic claims

Authors

Mary Ellen Sanders, International Scientific Association for Probiotics and PrebioticsFollow
Andrew K. Benson, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Sarah Lebeer, University of Antwerp
Daniel J. Merenstein, Georgetown University Medical Center
Todd R. Klaenhammer, North Carolina State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2018

Citation

Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2018, 49:207–216, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copbio.2017.09.007.

Comments

Copyright 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

Abstract

Strain-specificity of probiotic effects has been a cornerstone principle of probiotic science for decades. Certainly, some important mechanisms are present in only a few probiotic strains. But scientific advances now reveal commonalities among members of certain taxonomic groups of probiotic microbes. Some clinical benefits likely derive from these shared mechanisms, suggesting that sub-species-specific, species specific or genus-specific probiotic effects exist. Human trials are necessary to confirm specific health benefits. However, a strain that has not been tested in human efficacy trials may meet the minimum definition of the term ‘probiotic’ if it is a member of a well-studied probiotic species expressing underlying core mechanisms and it is delivered at an effective dose.