Authors:

William Petrusson

Date Created:

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About Paper:

Gut microbiomes are important to our overall health and can vary by composition, cell density, and fermentative ability of fibers. Gut community composition has been measured to assess and predict individual health, but to limited success due to extreme individuality within the population. Measuring functional capability of gut microbiota in vitro may be a more useful metric. To succeed in evaluating a wide variety of fecal communities in the human population, fermentation factors need to be understood and adjusted to an optimal and sensitive range. An iterative process was used to test fermentation conditions. Relevant conditions tested were buffer strength of the defined mineral media, substrate concentration, and substrate type. Various carbon sources tested were glucose, beta glucan, long-chain inulin, maltodextrin, resistant starch, wheat arabinoxylan, and digested wheat bran, listed in order of increasing complexity. Substrates were anaerobically fermented with fecal material collected from the same donor. Fermentation was evaluated by measuring pH change over time using batch fermentation. Substrates of lower complexity like glucose had a more dramatic pH change compared to higher complexity substrates. Increased fiber concentration was found to increase fermentation rate and decrease terminal pH slightly. Fluctuations in fermentation rates under constant conditions were attributed to differences in initial fecal samples collected on different days. Anoxic storage of fecal samples (4℃) limited these variations over a maximum period of 7 days. Understanding how different factors change rates of fecal fermentations with various fibers is fundamental for the selection of optimal conditions for a future functional bioassay.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

William Petrusson