Advances in the in vitro digestion and fermentation of polysaccharides

Abstract

In vitro digestion models are widely used to study the structural changes, digestion and release of food components under simulated gastrointestinal conditions. As compared to the in vivo digestion tests, the in vitro digestion reflects the digestion and utilisation of food after ingestion and has the advantages of being time consuming, inexpensive, reproducible and free from moral and ethical restrictions. This study reviewed the current research studies on the in vitro simulated digestion of polysaccharides conducted in the last 5 years and focused on the oral, gastric and intestinal digestion models, with the aim of providing a basis for the further testing of changes in the content, structure and active ingredients of polysaccharides before and after digestion.

In vitro digestive characteristics and microbial degradation of polysaccharides from lotus leaves and related effects on the modulation of intestinal microbiota

“…Dietary polysaccharides can be degraded by intestinal microbiota, such as Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Bacteroides caccae ( Koropatkin et al, 2012 ), resulting in the change of monosaccharide compositions ( Guo et al, 2021 ). Hence, in the present study, the dynamic change in monosaccharide compositions of LLPI during in vitro fermentation by human feces was determined to further reveal its microbial degradation characteristics.…”

“…The bioactivities of dietary polysaccharides are closely related to their digestive and microbial degradation characteristics from the stomach to the intestine ( Guo et al, 2021 ). In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that the human gastrointestinal tract can be one of the most important loci for healthy performance of dietary polysaccharides ( Xu et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ).…”

“…In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that the human gastrointestinal tract can be one of the most important loci for healthy performance of dietary polysaccharides ( Xu et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2020 ). Accumulating in vitro evidence has demonstrated that most of dietary polysaccharides are resistant to be digested in the human upper gastrointestinal tract owing to the lack of certain specific enzymes in human body, while these indigestible polysaccharides can enter into the colon and interact with the colonic bacteria ( Guo et al, 2021 ). Generally, there are trillions of colonic bacteria colonizing in the human intestine, which provide the host with a range of beneficial functions, such as catabolism of complex dietary macronutrients, preventing against pathogen infection, and maintaining the immune system ( Song et al, 2021 ).…”

Structural Characteristics, Antioxidant and Hypoglycemic Activities of Polysaccharide from Siraitia grosvenorii

“…Therefore, the development of a natural drug with fewer side effects has become a major point of current diabetes mellitus research [2]. In recent years, several plant polysaccharides have been shown to exhibit improved hypoglycemic activity and can improve insulin resistance (IR) with low toxicity and side effects [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

In vitro digestion and fecal fermentation of Siraitia grosvenorii polysaccharide and its impact on human gut microbiota

“…In vitro simulated digestion and fermentation have the advantage of being simple and effective in controlling and maintaining the composition and activity of microorganisms. 5,6 With over 100 trillion microorganisms, the intestinal microbiota plays an important role in human health. 7 The intestinal microbiota consists mainly of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes.…”