June 26, 2007

USDA scientists say prebiotics effective against meat pathogens
 

Researchers from the US Department of Agriculture said developing prebiotics from certain crops can likely help combat the incidence of salmonella and E. coli in meat.

According to USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), turning certain sugars from crops such as corn and soybeans into oligosaccharides can be help fight meat pathogens.

Oligosaccharides, which are complex carbohydrates, are already recognised for their potential as prebiotics, which stimulate the growth of probiotic bacteria in the gut. Probiotics are deemed to promote intestinal health.

This has led to the growth of a market for foods containing prebiotics - which can be incorporated into a wider variety of end products than probiotic bacteria.

But ARS chemist Greg Cote says that besides unlocking minerals, vitamins and other nutrients from the oligosaccharides, probiotic bacteria can also make the colon protected from pathogens, such as Salmonella and

E coli, that can cause illness in humans.

When fed to chicks or piglets, prebiotics could bolster the growth and activity of probiotic bacteria so they would "outcompete" Salmonella for space and nutrients, said ARS. This could have obvious benefits later on, when the animals are slaughtered for their meat.

Cote, who is in the ARS Bioproducts and Biocatalysis Research Unit at Peoria, Illinois, developed the oligosaccharides together with Scott Holt, an associate professor with Western Illinois University's Department of Biological Sciences. Cote and Holt are hoping to formulate orally- administered oligosaccharides as a prebiotic product. 

ARS explains that their production method uses a microbial enzyme called alternansucrase to catalyze a series of biochemical reactions that convert sugars like sucrose, glucose or maltitol into different kinds of oligosaccharides.