The correlation between surface hydrophobicity and adherence of Bifidobacterium strains from centenarians' faeces

To develop food-grade bifidobacteria micro-ecologics, screening for Bifidobacteria strains which can adhere to intestinal epithelial cells was finished. Twenty-three bifidobacterial strains tested were isolated from centenarians in Bama country, the fifth long-lived district in the world. Surface hydrophobicity and adherence capability to intestinal epithelial cells in vitro of bifidobacteria were simultaneously investigated for the first time. It has been demonstrated that all the strains exhibited adhesive properties to some extent using intestinal Caco-2 cell line in in vitro model. It could be conclude that the higher hydrophobic strains the stronger adhesive capability. The highest value of hydrophobicity (37.24 +/- 1.45% and 32.06 +/- 1.21%) was obtained for strains H-10 and I-6, respectively; correspondingly, the strongest adherence ability (49.47 +/- 4.88/cell and 47.33 +/- 2.72/cell) was achieved, respectively. Correlation between surface hydrophobicity and adherence ability of different Bifidobacterium strains including polynomial regression equation (R-2 = 0.78) had been achieved. The present study provided a liable and effective method for screening bifidobacteria with the ability to adhere to intestinal epithelial cells. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.