Microbial Communities in Home-Made and Commercial Kefir and Their Hypoglycemic Properties

Abstract

Kefir is a popular traditional fermented dairy product in many countries. It has a complex and symbiotic culture made up of species of the genera Leuconostoc, Lactococcus, and Acetobacter, as well as Lactobacilluskefiranofaciens and Lentilactobacillus kefiri. Though kefir has been commercialized in some countries, people are still traditionally preparing kefir at the household level. Kefir is known to have many nutritious values, where its consistent microbiota has been identified as the main valuable components of the product. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a common diet-related disease and has been one of the main concerns in the world’s growing population. Kefir has been shown to have promising activities in T2DM, mostly via hypoglycemic properties. This review aims to explain the microbial composition of commercial and home-made kefir and its possible effects on T2DM. Some studies on animal models and human clinical trials have been reviewed to validate the hypoglycemic properties of kefir. Based on animal and human studies, it has been shown that consumption of kefir reduces blood glucose, improves insulin signaling, controls oxidative stress, and decreases progression of diabetic nephropathy. Moreover, probiotic bacteria such as lactic-acid bacteria and Bifidobacterium spp. and their end-metabolites in turn directly or indirectly help in controlling many gut disorders, which are also the main biomarkers in the T2DM condition and its possible treatment.

Unifying duplication episode clustering and gene-species mapping inference

“…Another important issue was the presence of a previously described whole-genome duplication event that occurred in the evolutionary tree of selected species. Given the above requirements, we decided to use proteomes belonging to yeast species identified during metagenomic analysis of kefir [ 41 ]. Note that a direct comparison of our results with alternative methods is not possible due to the absence of any existing approach for the simultaneous inference of duplications and gene-species mappings.…”

Correction: Bintsis, T.; Papademas, P. The Evolution of Fermented Milks, from Artisanal to Industrial Products: A Critical Review. Fermentation 2022, 8, 679

“…plantarum and Leuc. mesenteroides, Lactobacillus helveticus, Leuconostoc citreum, Leuconostoc gelidum, Leuconostoc kimchi, Acetobacter pasteurianus, and Acetobacter lovaniensis [26, [182][183][184][185][186], and yeasts such as Kl. marxianus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Torulopsis kefir, Torulaspora delbrueckii, Candida kefir, Saccharomyces unisporus, Pichia fermentans, Yarrowia lipolytica, Debaryomyces spp., Galactomyces spp., Issatchenkia spp., Kazachstania spp., Kluyveromyces spp., Pichia spp., Saccharomyces spp., Wickerhamomyces spp.…”

Unifying Duplication Episode Clustering andGene-Species Mapping Inference

“…Another important issue was the presence of a previously described whole-genome duplication event that 2 Summary of spanning and no-spanning distributions of gene-species mappings for the simulated dataset occurred in the evolutionary tree of selected species. Given the above requirements, we decided to use proteomes belonging to yeast species identiőed during metagenomic analysis of keőr [40].…”