Metabolism of biodiesel-derived glycerol in probiotic Lactobacillus strains

Metabolomic Profile of Personalized Donor Human Milk

Human milk could be considered an active and complex mixture of beneficial bacteria and bioactive compounds. Since pasteurization drastically reduces the microbial content, we recently demonstrated that pasteurized donor human milk (DHM) could be inoculated with different percentages (10% and 30%) of mother's own milk (MOM) to restore the unique live microbiota, resulting in personalized milk (RM10 and RM30, respectively). Pasteurization affects not only the survival of the microbiota but also the concentration of proteins and metabolites, in this study, we performed a comparative metabolomic analysis of the RM10, RM30, MOM and DHM samples to evaluate the impact of microbial restoration on metabolite profiles, where metabolite profiles clustered into four well-defined groups. Comparative analyses of DHM and MOM metabolomes determined that over one thousand features were significantly different. In addition, significant changes in the metabolite concentrations were observed in MOM and RM30 samples after four hours of incubation, while the concentration of metabolites in DHM remained constant, indicating that these changes are related to the microbial expansion. In summary, our analyses indicate that the metabolite profiles of DHM are significantly different from that of MOM, and the profile of MOM may be partially restored in DHM through microbial expansion.

Use of crude glycerine and microbial inoculants to improve the fermentation process of Tifton 85 haylages

The increase in haylage production leads to the search for additives that improve its fermentation and nutritional value. This study aimed to assess the effect of adding crude glycerine and microbial additives on losses, fermentation parameters and nutritional value of haylage. The treatments were composed of three doses of crude glycerine (0, 60 and 120 g/kg forage) and three types of inoculation (control (distilled water), SIL (Lactobacillus plantarum 2.6 × 10¹⁰ CFU/g and Pediococcus pentosaceus 2.6 × 10¹⁰ CFU/g) and INC (Bacillus subtilis 2.0 × 10⁹ CFU/g, Lactobacillus plantarum 8.0 × 10⁹ CFU/g and Pediococcus acidilactici 1.0 × 10¹⁰ CFU/g)). A negative linear effect was observed in the fibre fraction contents of the haylages as a function of crude glycerine addition, which contributed to similarly increasing dry matter in vitro digestibility coefficients. The use of inoculants also resulted in haylages with higher digestibility coefficients of 635.1 and 646.8 g/kg dry matter (DM) in the treatments inoculated with INC and SIL, respectively. Fermentation losses were reduced by adding crude glycerine and were not impacted by the microbial inoculants. Higher lactic acid productions were obtained as a function of crude glycerine doses. Acetic acid productions decreased from 29.3 g/kg DM to 19.2 g/kg DM between crude glycerine doses of 0 and 120 g/kg forage, respectively. SIL led to the highest lactic acid productions compared to INC and the control. Crude glycerine improves the fermentation parameters and nutritional value of haylages. However, the microbial inoculants had little impact on the parameters assessed.

Sucrose metabolism alters Lactobacillus plantarum survival and interactions with the microbiota in the digestive tract

We investigated whether sucrose metabolism by probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum influences the intestinal survival and microbial responses to this organism when administered to mice fed a sucrose-rich, Western diet. A L. plantarum mutant unable to metabolize sucrose was constructed by deleting scrB, coding for beta-fructofuranosidase, in a rifampicin-resistant strain of L. plantarum NCIMB8826. The ScrB deficient mutant survived in 8-fold higher numbers compared to the wild-type strain when measured 24 h after administration on two consecutive days. According to 16S rRNA marker gene sequencing, proportions of Faecalibacterium and Streptococcus were elevated in mice fed the L. plantarum ΔscrB mutant. Metagenome predictions also indicated those mice contained a higher abundance of lactate dehydrogenases. This was further supported by a trend in elevated fecal lactate concentrations among mice fed the ΔscrB mutant. L. plantarum also caused other changes to the fecal metabolomes including higher concentrations of glycerol in mice fed the ΔscrB mutant and increased uracil, acetate and propionate levels among mice fed the wild-type strain. Taken together, these results suggest that sucrose metabolism alters the properties of L. plantarum in the digestive tract and that probiotics can differentially influence intestinal metabolomes via their carbohydrate consumption capabilities.

L-lactate production from biodiesel-derived crude glycerol by metabolically engineered Enterococcus faecalis: cytotoxic evaluation of biodiesel waste and development of a glycerol-inducible gene expression system

Biodiesel waste is a by-product of the biodiesel production process that contains a large amount of crude glycerol. To reuse the crude glycerol, a novel bioconversion process using Enterococcus faecalis was developed through physiological studies. The E. faecalis strain W11 could use biodiesel waste as a carbon source, although cell growth was significantly inhibited by the oil component in the biodiesel waste, which decreased the cellular NADH/NAD(+) ratio and then induced oxidative stress to cells. When W11 was cultured with glycerol, the maximum culture density (optical density at 600 nm [OD600]) under anaerobic conditions was decreased 8-fold by the oil component compared with that under aerobic conditions. Furthermore, W11 cultured with dihydroxyacetone (DHA) could show slight or no growth in the presence of the oil component with or without oxygen. These results indicated that the DHA kinase reaction in the glycerol metabolic pathway was sensitive to the oil component as an oxidant. The lactate dehydrogenase (Ldh) activity of W11 during anaerobic glycerol metabolism was 4.1-fold lower than that during aerobic glycerol metabolism, which was one of the causes of low l-lactate productivity. The E. faecalis pflB gene disruptant (Δpfl mutant) expressing the ldhL1LP gene produced 300 mM l-lactate from glycerol/crude glycerol with a yield of >99% within 48 h and reached a maximum productivity of 18 mM h(-1) (1.6 g liter(-1) h(-1)). Thus, our study demonstrates that metabolically engineered E. faecalis can convert crude glycerol to l-lactate at high conversion efficiency and provides critical information on the recycling process for biodiesel waste.

Pyruvate formate-lyase is essential for fumarate-independent anaerobic glycerol utilization in the Enterococcus faecalis strain W11

Although anaerobic glycerol metabolism in Enterococcus faecalis requires exogenous fumarate for NADH oxidation, E. faecalis strain W11 can metabolize glycerol in the absence of oxygen without exogenous fumarate. In this study, metabolic end product analyses and reporter assays probing the expression of enzymes involved in pyruvate metabolism were performed to investigate this fumarate-independent anaerobic metabolism of glycerol in W11. Under aerobic conditions, the metabolic end products of W11 cultured with glycerol were similar to those of W11 cultured with glucose. However, when W11 was cultured anaerobically, most of the glucose was converted to l-lactate, but glycerol was converted to ethanol and formate. During anaerobic culture with glycerol, the expression of the l-lactate dehydrogenase and pyruvate dehydrogenase E1αβ genes in W11 was downregulated, whereas the expression of the pyruvate formate-lyase (Pfl) and aldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase genes was upregulated. These changes in the expression levels caused the change in the composition of end products. A pflB gene disruptant (Δpfl mutant) of W11 could barely utilize glycerol under anaerobic conditions, but the growth of the Δpfl mutant cultured with either glucose or dihydroxyacetone (DHA) under anaerobic conditions was the same as that of W11. Glucose metabolism and DHA generates one NADH molecule per pyruvate molecule, whereas glycerol metabolism in the dehydrogenation pathway generates two NADH molecules per pyruvate molecule. These findings demonstrate that NADH generated from anaerobic glycerol metabolism in the absence of fumarate is oxidized through the Pfl-ethanol fermentation pathway. Thus, Pfl is essential to avoid the accumulation of excess NADH during fumarate-independent anaerobic glycerol metabolism.