Back in 1899, Henry Tissier, a pediatrician at the Pasteur Institute in France, isolated an anaerobic gram-positive bacterium from the feces of healthy breastfed infants, then named Bacillus bifidus. Tissier then found that supplementing the forked bacteria could treat intestinal infections. After the discovery of Bifidobacterium by Tissier, more members of the bifidobacterium genus have been found, and the physiological functions of bifidobacterium have been deeply explored and studied. After a century of development, especially the development of intestinal microbiome research in recent years, people have increasingly realized the importance of bifidobacterium. Bifidobacterium has also been widely used in medicine and food.
It belongs to Bifidobacteria according to the Linnaeus classification system, to bacteria according to the three-domain system [1], and to prokaryotes according to the five-kingdom classification system [2].
Biological characteristics
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EDITOR
The morphology of bifidobacteria is mainly defined as two forms, the bifurcation form is defined as type I, named Lactobacillus; The rod-shaped form was defined as type II and was named Lactobacillus parafuccularis. In the intestine, bifidobacterium mostly presents in straight rod shape, and rarely presents in forked or curved rod shape. At the time of initial isolation, due to the lack of appropriate culture conditions, the strain usually presented as type I, and the morphology mainly included two forms: unforked and forked, among which the forked was V-shaped and Y-shaped, but in the subsequent culture, the forked was usually curved and rod-shaped. Under the microscope, the bacteria are Y shape, spoon shape, V shape, curved shape, stick shape, etc., after a certain degree of culture, it will be transformed into type II, and long-term, stable inheritance. Therefore, clinically, it is believed that the transformation of type II to type I is due to the degradation caused by inadaptation to the environment and temperature, and the transformation of type I to type II is due to the evolution of better adaptation to the environment and temperature.
In different growth environments, or different types of bifidobacterium have different forms, such as bifidobacterium longum is generally spoon-shaped, and bifidobacterium thermophilic is slender rod. There were also reports of spheroidal bifidobacterium, such as rabbit bifidobacterium, whose shape was nearly spheroidal. Bifidobacterium of the same species may appear in different forms under different growth states or different culture methods. For example, GAVINI et al. found the globular subspecies of bifidobacterium pseudostreptococcus in the excrement experiment of breast-fed lambs. Bifidobacteria polymorphism may be induced by the lack of sodium acetate sodium sulfate, sodium chloride, n-acetyl amino sugars or carbonate. [3]
Physiological function
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EDITOR
Bifidobacterium is an important intestinal beneficial microbe. As a kind of physiologically beneficial bacteria, Bifidobacterium has many important physiological functions on human health, such as biological barrier, nutritional effect, anti-tumor effect, immune enhancement effect, improvement of gastrointestinal function and anti-aging [4].
A large number of microbes colonize the human gut. There is a close relationship between gut microbes and human health and disease. Based on the known effects of gut microbes on human health, gut microbes can be divided into three categories: beneficial, harmless, and harmful.
Under normal circumstances, the gut microbes in the human body form a relatively balanced state. Once the balance is destroyed, such as taking antibiotics, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, emotional depression, physical weakness, lack of immunity, etc., it will cause the intestinal flora to lose balance, and some intestinal microorganisms such as Clostridium perfringens will overproliferate in the intestinal tract and produce harmful substances such as, amines, hydrogen sulfide, skatine, indole, nitrous acid, bacterial toxins, etc. Thus further affecting the health of the body.
Beneficial bacteria such as bifidobacterium and lactic acid bacteria can inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria in human body, resist the infection of pathogenic bacteria, synthesize vitamins needed by human body, promote the absorption of minerals by human body, produce acetic acid, propionic butyric acid and lactic acid to stimulate intestinal peristalsis and promote defecation. It plays an important role in preventing constipation and inhibiting intestinal spoilage, purifying intestinal environment, decomposing carcinogens, stimulating the human immune system, and thus improving disease resistance. Specifically, the beneficial effects of bifidobacterium include the following aspects.
Treatment of chronic diarrhea and antibiotic-associated diarrhea
Bifidobacterium has the function of regulating intestinal flora. Clinical observation of patients with chronic diarrhea with bifidobacterium showed that after two weeks of medication, the frequency and shape of stool were abnormal, clinical symptoms disappeared, the total effective rate was 90.3%, and the recurrence rate was low. Many domestic hospitals have adopted bifidobacterium preparations as the first choice for the treatment of chronic diarrhea. In addition, bifidobacteria can also treat antibiotic-associated diarrheal disease caused by overuse of antibiotics. Some people used bifidobacterium preparations to treat 380 cases of pseudomembranous enteritis, the total clinical cure rate was not significantly different, but the clinical side effects and recurrence rate were significantly reduced. Bifidobacterium has a good therapeutic effect on acute and chronic diarrhea in children [5].
Nutritive action
Bifidobacterium lacks aldolase and glucose, so its catabolic pathway is different from that of lactic acid bacteria. The main products of bifidobacterium mainly include lactic acid, acetic acid, etc., which can improve the pH value of the body, promote the absorption of iron and vitamin D, and improve the utilization rate of phosphorus, iron and calcium. Bifidobacterium can decompose α-casein through phosphoprotein phosphatase to promote protein absorption. Clinically, in the case of the lack of lactase, the ingested lactose or pure milk can not be digested and absorbed into the blood, but still remains in the intestine, and intestinal bacteria will produce a lot of gas in the process of fermentation and decomposition of lactose, resulting in diarrhea, stomach bloating and gas bloating and other symptoms. In animal production, soybean meal is the main protein source, but because oligosaccharides are not easy to digest, their use is limited to some extent, mainly raffinose and hydrothreose. Bifidobacterium has a higher activity than most bacteria lactase, this enzyme can ferment lactose to produce galactose. Therefore, lactase deficient people, drinking dairy products fermented by bifidobacterium, can not only obtain rich nutrition in dairy products, but also avoid gastrointestinal pain. [3]
antagonism
COLLADO et al. showed that when bifidobacterium bifidum (S17) was co-cultured with pathogenic Escherichia coli, Shigella flexneri, Salmonella and other intestinal pathogens, the adhesion ability to HeLa cells was significantly decreased. In addition to competing with pathogenic bacteria for nutrients and spatial location, bifidobacterium can also prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria through its metabolites and the production of antibiotics and bacteriocins. Bifidobacterium can block specific binding sites of pathogenic bacteria and toxins, which may be achieved by extracellular enzymes that can degrade polysaccharides on the surface of intestinal epithelial cells. [3]
Laxative function
Constipation is a condition in which the stool is dry and difficult to resolve or the number of bowel movements is reduced. Clinically, it can be divided into functional constipation and organic constipation according to the etiology. Bifidobacterium has obvious effect on functional constipation. Studies have reported that the number of bifidobacterium colonized in human intestinal tract changes with the change of age and health status. The bifidobacterium in the intestinal tract of breast-fed children can account for 91% of the total intestinal bacteria, while the number of bifidobacterium in the intestinal flora of the elderly has decreased significantly. Many elderly people can take oral bifidobacterium microecological preparation to significantly improve constipation caused by the lack of bifidobacterium. [3]
Boost immunity
Bifidobacterium has the function of regulating immune function. Mainly through stimulation of intestinal mucosa, it activates the immune system of intestinal mucosa and makes it produce antibodies and cytokines, so as to better improve the immune and anti-infection ability of intestinal mucosa. [3]
Anti-tumor effect
Bifidobacterium has anti-colon cancer effect, which may affect intestinal flora metabolism and improve host immune response. Adhesion and degradation of potential carcinogens to prevent intestinal cancer; Change intestinal flora; Produce anticancer anti-mutagenic substances; Enhancing the host immune response; To influence the physiological activity of the host. [3]
Anti-aging function
The aging of the human body often begins with the aging of the intestine. Bifidobacterium plays an important role in maintaining intestinal health and slowing down intestinal aging. VERENA et al. added the milk containing bifidobacterium lactate into the DNA medium of human intestinal cells, which could avoid oxidative damage of intestinal cells and delay intestinal aging. Studies have shown that bifidobacterium can significantly increase the content of peroxide dismutase in blood and its biological activity, effectively promote the removal of free radicals in the body, reduce the toxicity of harmful substances in the body by 90%, inhibit plasma lipid peroxidation, and delay the aging of the body. [3]
method
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EDITOR
There are two ways to promote the growth of bifidobacteria in the body. The first way is to drink yoghurt or drinks containing bifidobacteria to supplement bifidobacteria, and you can also directly ingestion of microecological preparations containing bifidobacteria. In addition, products containing bifidobacteria can also be ingested to promote the growth and reproduction of the human body's own inherent bifidobacteria. The so-called bifidobacterium factor mainly refers to some functional non-digestible oligosaccharides, which can selectively promote the proliferation of bifidobacterium. The main oligosaccharides that can make bifidobacteria multiply are isomaltooligosaccharides, fructooligosaccharides, galactose oligosaccharides, soybean oligosaccharides, raffinose mixed lactosucrose, xylo-oligosaccharides and so on.
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