Identification of Vaginal Lactobacilli with Potential Probiotic Properties Isolated from Women in North Lebanon

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the diversity of vaginal lactobacilli in Lebanese women and to evaluate the antagonism, hydrophobicity, and safety characteristics of these strains. This study was performed on samples from 135 women who visited a gynecology clinic in the north of Lebanon, between September 2012 and January 2013. From these samples, 53 different isolates of vaginal lactobacilli were collected from vaginal swabs and identified using biochemical and molecular methods. The use of genotypic Rep-PCR fingerprinting allowed for the organization of these isolates into 23 different groups. Seven of the isolated lactobacilli were antagonistic against the following vaginal pathogens: Gardnerella vaginalis CIP7074T, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC33862, Escherichia coli CIP103982, and Candida albicans ATCC10231. The antagonistic lactobacilli strains were then identified using 16S rDNA sequence. The data of this study show that the antagonistic lactobacilli were non-hemolytic, sensitive to most antibiotic tests, free of plasmid DNA, and exhibited interesting hydrophobicity and autoaggregation properties positioning them as potential candidates for probiotic design.

Selection of Lactobacillus strains as potential probiotics for vaginitis treatment

“…This ability is higher in acid environments and represents the first step during the formation of biofilms by lactobacilli (Juarez-Thomas et al, 2005). As in other studies (Gil et al, 2010;Kassaa et al, 2014), the present results revealed different levels of auto-aggregation of the lactobacilli, suggesting that these levels depend on the strain and not on the species.…”

Inhibition of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm by Lactobacillus isolated from fine cocoa

“…The potential of Lactobacillus species to inhibit pathogens of clinical importance such as S. aureus had been evaluated before. Accordingly, Al Kassaa et al (2014) showed that L. fermentum CMUL054 and L. plantarum CMUL140 were active against S. aureus ATCC33862 [23]. Moreover, Hor and Liong (2014) analyzed 87 lactic acid bacteria strains and three strains of bifidobacteria, and found that all strains inhibited the growth of S. aureus by 0.5 to 34.2 %; L. fermentum and L. plantarum , which were isolated from milk, inhibited growth by around 20 % [24].…”

“…Moreover, Hor and Liong (2014) analyzed 87 lactic acid bacteria strains and three strains of bifidobacteria, and found that all strains inhibited the growth of S. aureus by 0.5 to 34.2 %; L. fermentum and L. plantarum , which were isolated from milk, inhibited growth by around 20 % [24]. Although inhibition of S. aureus by lactic bacteria has been reported in many studies [23–26], few of them have calculated the MIC from extracellular bacterial extracts. This has made it difficult to assess the extracts’ inhibitory action.…”

Antimicrobial Compounds Produced by Vaginal Lactobacillus crispatus Are Able to Strongly Inhibit Candida albicans Growth, Hyphal Formation and Regulate Virulence-related Gene Expressions

“…Lactobacillus -dominated microbiota is thought to be a valuable biomarker for vaginal health since the Lactobacillus species can create a barrier against pathogen invasion (Petrova et al, 2015). L. crispatus , L. gasseri , and L. jensenii were the most frequently isolated species in the vagina of healthy women (Pendharkar et al, 2013; Al et al, 2014; Madhivanan et al, 2015), where C. albicans is often a minority co-habitant of vaginal microbiota. In this study, we investigated how these three Lactobacillus species affected C. albicans growth and yeast-to-hyphae transition, which are implicated in its pathogenesis.…”