Protective Effects of Bifidobacterial Strains Against Toxigenic Clostridium difficile

Abstract

Probiotics might offer an attractive alternative to prevent and control Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection (CDI). Limited information is available on the ability of commercially used bifidobacterial strains to inhibit C. difficile. This study examined the anti-clostridial effects of Bifidobacterium longum JDM301, a widely used commercial probiotic strain in China, in vitro and in vivo. In vitro evaluation revealed a significant reduction in C. difficile counts when JDM301 was co-cultured with C. difficile, which was correlated with the significant decrease in clostridial toxin titres (TcdA and TcdB). Furthermore, the cell-free culture supernatants (CFS) of JDM301 inhibited C. difficile growth and degraded TcdA and TcdB. Notably, the results showed that acid pH promoted the degradation of TcdA by CFS from JDM301. Furthermore, comparative studies among 10 B. longum strains were performed, which showed that the inhibitory effect of CFS from JDM301 was similar with the other 8 B. longum strains and higher than strain BLY1. However, when it was neutralized, the significant different was lost. When present together, it was suggested that the acid pH induced by probiotics not only played important roles in the growth inhibition against C. difficile resulting in the reduction of toxins titres, but also directly promoted the degradation of clostridial toxin. In vivo studies proved that JDM301 partially relieved damage to tissues caused by C. difficile and also decreased the number of C. difficile and toxin levels. In summary, our results demonstrated that the commercial strain, JDM301 could be considered a probiotic able to exert anti-toxin capability and most of the CFS from Bifidobacterium were able to inhibit the growth of C. difficile, depending on acid pH. These results highlighted a potential that JDM301 could be helpful in preventing CDI and that most of the bifidobacterial strains could (at least partially) exert protective effects by reducing toxin titres through growth inhibition against toxigenic C. difficile.

Consortium of Probiotics Attenuates Colonization of Clostridioides difficile

“…Many studies have also demonstrated that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium are associated with colonization resistance against C. difficile (Lawley et al, 2012;Petrof et al, 2013;Valdes-Varela et al, 2016;Martz et al, 2017;De Wolfe et al, 2018;Vedantam et al, 2018). Bifidobacterium longum JDM301, a widely used commercial probiotic strain, can inhibit C. difficile growth and degrade TcdA and TcdB, and the author further proved that the exertion of inhibition of B. longum is dependent on an acidic pH (Wei et al, 2018). We speculate that Lactobacilli with acid-and bile salt-tolerance which ensured to reach the intestine, could provide an acidic microenvironment in which Bifidobacteria can maximize the suppression of C. difficile.…”

“…A histological graded scoring system was used to assess pathological tissue inflammation as follows: 0, normal; 1, inflammatory cells increase in lamina propria; 2, inflammatory cells increase in submucosa; 3, plenty of inflammatory cell mass. Stained sections were examined and evaluated blindly by a certified pathologist (Chen et al, 2008;Wei et al, 2018).…”

Microbiota Alterations in Gastrointestinal Cancers

“…Bifidobacteria are believed to restrain cancer development by various mechanisms including oligosaccharide fermentation and biotransformation and by increasing the integrity of the intestinal barrier. Lactic fermentation is also suggested to have an antiproliferative effect on colorectal cancer cells, and lactic bacteria such as Bifidobacterium were reported to exhibit preventive effects against colon, bladder, liver, breast, and gastric cancer [108]. Moreover, the Lactobacilli, together with the Bifidobacteria, produce acetate and lactate.…”

The Probiotic Effectiveness in Preventing Experimental Colitis Is Correlated With Host Gut Microbiota

“…B. longum JDM 301 is a widely used commercial probiotic strain in China ( Wei et al, 2010 ). Our previous study demonstrated that B. longum JDM 301 can prevent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) in mice ( Wei et al, 2018 ). In the present study, we used B. longum JDM 301 as a model probiotic to test factors that could potentially influence the therapeutic effect of probiotics in experimental colitis.…”