IBS-associated phylogenetic unbalances of the intestinal microbiota are not reverted by probiotic supplementation.

IBS is a prevalent functional gastrointestinal disorder, in which the microbiota has been demonstrated to play a role. An increasing number of studies have suggested how probiotics may alleviate IBS symptoms and several mechanisms of action have been proposed.   In the present study we characterized the intestinal microbiota of 19 subjects suffering from diagnosed IBS using a fully validated High Taxonomic Fingerprint Microbiota Array (HTF-Microbi.Array). We demonstrated that the IBS microbiota is different from that of healthy individuals due to an unbalance in a number of commensal species, with an increase in relative abundance of lactobacilli, B. cereus and B. clausii, bifidobacteria, Clostridium cluster IX and E. rectale, and a decrease in abundance of Bacteroides/Prevotella group and Veillonella genus. Additionally, we demonstrated that some bacterial groups of the human intestinal microbiota, recently defined as pathobionts, are increased in concentration in the IBS microbiota. Furthermore, we aimed at investigating if the daily administration of a novel probiotic yogurt containing B. animalis subsp lactis Bb12 and K. marxianus B0399, recently demonstrated to have beneficial effects in the management of IBS symptoms, could impact on the biostructure of IBS microbiota, modulating its composition to counteract putative dysbiosis found in IBS subjects. Notably, we demonstrated that the beneficial effects associated to the probiotic preparation are not related to significant modifications in the composition of the human intestinal microbiota.

Potential probiotic Kluyveromyces marxianus B0399 modulates the immune response in Caco-2 cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells and impacts the human gut microbiota in an in vitro colonic model system.

Considering the increase in the consumption of yeasts as human probiotics, the aim of this study was to broadly investigate the beneficial properties of the lactic yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus (formerly Kluyveromyces fragilis) B0399. Several potential probiotic traits of K. marxianus B0399 were investigated by using in vitro assays, including adhesion and immune modulation, and the effect of the administration of 10(7) CFU/day of K. marxianus B0399 on the composition and metabolic activity of the human intestinal microbiota was investigated in a 3-stage continuous-culture system simulating the human colon. We demonstrated that this strain was highly adhesive to human enterocyte-like Caco-2 cells and modulated the immune response, inducing proinflammatory cytokines in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). In the presence of inflammatory stimulation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), K. marxianus B0399 provoked decreases in the levels of production of proinflammatory cytokines in PBMCs and Caco-2 cells, thus ameliorating the inflammatory response. Furthermore, K. marxianus B0399 impacted the colonic microbiota, increasing the bifidobacterial concentration in the stages of the colonic model system simulating the proximal and transverse colon. The amounts of the short-chain fatty acids acetate and propionate also increased following yeast supplementation. Finally, K. marxianus B0399 was found to induce a decrease of the cytotoxic potential of the culture supernatant from the first stage of the colonic model system. The effects of K. marxianus B0399 on adhesion, immune function, and colonic microbiota demonstrate that this strain possesses a number of beneficial and strain-specific properties desirable for a microorganism considered for application as a probiotic.