Probiotic potential of L. sake C2 isolated from traditional Chinese fermented cabbage

The probiotic properties of Lactobacillus sake C2 isolated from traditional Chinese fermentation cabbage were evaluated. L. sake C2 displayed good tolerance to the gastrointestinal environments including low pH, presence of bile salts, pepsin, and pancreatin. L. sake C2 not only could produce the bacteriocin with a broad inhibitory spectrum, but also secrete a large amount of lactic acid (11.26 mg/mL) and certain amount of H2O2 (3.14 mg/mL). L. sake C2 displayed a high adhesion rate of 15.2 +/- 1.2% to Caco-2 cells. Moreover, viable cells of L. sake C2 have fairly strong ability to remove cholesterol (53.2 +/- 1.4%). These results indicated that L. sake C2 has a potential as probiotic. Moreover, this study suggested that besides lactic acid bacteria originating from human, those isolated from fermented foods have potential to be used as probiotic and may be exploited in food industry and probiotic preparations.