Subject description
Development of probiotics for animals and humans.
Selection criteria for probiotics: colonisation ability, physiological properties, safety (invasiveness, resistance to antibiotics, formation of toxins, virulence factors, competitiveness), technological properties (survival during technological procedures of fermentation, drying, lyophilisation, encapsulation; resistance in various matrices and storage conditions).
Mechanisms of functioning and markers for tracing: competition for nutrients, competititon for attachment sites, antimicrobial and antivirus activity, communication with intestinal cells, indirect and direct regulation of metabolism, antimutagenic activity, balancing the immune system. Theory of defence on three levels.
Importance of the development of microbiomes for the health of an organism, changes of intestinal microbiota in various life periods and under the influence of external factors and possible preventive treatment and therapy with probiotics.
Claims of the health effects of probiotics (»health claims«); probiotics as functional food, food and feed additives (growth, preventing infection).
Probiotics as therapeutics: lactose intolerance; intestinal infections and inflammation, preventing AAD (antibiotic associated diarrhea), rotavirus diarrhea, Helicobacter pylori, urogenital infections, protection of mammary gland.
New product categories: psychobiotics, postbiotics, live biotherapeutic products. Basic characteristics and differences between these products, prebiotics and fermented foods
Exercises: presentation of classical and genetic methods for studying the probiotics and methods used for control of probiotic preparations and probiotic foods.
Seminar exercises: planning in vivo and clinical research.
The subject is taught in programs
Objectives and competences
Educational aims: The basic educational aim is to deepen knowledge from the whole field of probiotics (functional food, food and feed additives, therapeutics) which will enable a student to perform independent work, from selection of new strains, studying mechanisms of action and confirming probiotic effects (in vitro, in vivo, clinical studies), checking safety and technological properties to possible applications.
Teaching and learning methods
The subject will be taught in the form of:
- lectures, at which the lecturer will try to present the entire field of science of probiotics with a stress on the most recent discoveries and methods of studying probiotics.
- seminar, at which students together with teachers will design problem themes for seminar tasks and
- laboratory exercises at which they will learn contemporary methods of studying probiotics through specific cases.
Expected study results
Knowledge and understanding:
of probiotic’s activity and their possible role in the development of the intestinal microbiota, in maintaining of balanced microbiota and in various clinical indications therapy
Basic sources and literature
- Binda S, Hill C, Johansen E, Obis D, Pot B, Sanders ME, Tremblay A and Ouwehand AC (2020) Criteria to Qualify Microorganisms as “Probiotic” in Foods and Dietary Supplements. Front. Microbiol. 11:1662. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01662
- EFSA FEEDAP. 2018. Guidance on the characterisation of microorganisms used as feed additives or as production organisms. EFSA Journal 16(3):5206, 24 pp. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2018.5206
- Hill, C. et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics consensus statement on the scope and appropriate use of the term probiotic Nat. Rev. Gastroenterol. Hepatol. 11, 506–514 (2014); published online 10 June 2014; doi:10.1038/nrgastro.2014.66
- Press Release – European Pharmacopoeia Commission sets unprecedented quality requirements LBPs – April 2018. https://www.edqm.eu/en/d/85842 Dostop: 13-5-2022
- Sanders ME, Benson A, Lebeer S, et al. 2018. Shared mechanisms among probiotic taxa: implications for general probiotic claims. Curr Opin Biotechnol. 49: 207–216.
- Guidelines for the Evaluation of Probiotics in Food. Joint FAO/WHO Working Group Report on Drafting Guidelines for the Evaluation of Probiotics in Food, London, Ontario, Canada, 2002, 11 str.
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