Effect of prebiotic fermentation products from primary human gut microbiota on an in vitro intestinal model

Abstract

Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) are hypothesised to play a key role in the microbiota-gut-brain crosstalk. However, studies that evaluate the effect of microbiota-targeted interventions, such as prebiotics, probiotics or diet are still sparse, particularly in humans. In this work, the products of fermentation of prebiotic-enriched media by bacteria from primary human faecal samples were tested on differentiated Caco-2/HT29-MTX co-cultures. The prebiotics raftilose and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) were tested, and the experimental conditions (contact time and minimal dilution) were optimised to avoid cytotoxicity. The optimised conditions did not compromise the intestinal epithelium integrity. In addition, none of the fermentation products caused an inflammatory response. The products of fermentation of FOS-enriched media showed a moderate protective effect against the formation of reactive oxygen species. This work provides an important basis for the development of in vitro models using a simple approach to evaluate host-gut microbiota interactions.

Keywords

• Intestinal in vitro models
• Human gut microbiota
• Prebiotics
• Fermentation
• Primary faecal samples