Changes in human gut microbiota influenced by probiotic fermented milk ingestion

We investigated the effect of consuming probiotic fermented milk (PFM) on the microbial community structure in the human intestinal tract by using high-throughput barcoded pyrosequencing. Six healthy adults ingested 2 servings of PFM daily for 3 wk, and their fecal microbiota were analyzed before and after 3 wk of PFM ingestion period and for another 3 wk following the termination of PFM ingestion (the noningestion period). Fecal microbial communities were characterized by sequencing of the V1-V3 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene. All subjects showed a similar pattern of microbiota at the phylum level, where the relative abundance of Bacteriodetes species increased during the PFM ingestion period and decreased during the noningestion period. The increase in Bacteroidetes was found to be due to an increase in members of the families Bacteroidaceae or Prevotellaceae. In contrast to PFM-induced adaptation at the phylum level, the taxonomic composition at the genus level showed a considerable alteration in fecal microbiota induced by PFM ingestion. As revealed by analysis of operational taxonomic units (OTU), the numbers of shared OTU were low among the 3 different treatments (before, during, and after PFM ingestion), but the abundance of the shared OTU was relatively high, indicating that the majority (>77.8%) of total microbiota was maintained by shared OTU during PFM ingestion and after its termination. Our results suggest that PFM consumption could alter microbial community structure in the gastrointestinal tract of adult humans while maintaining the stability of microbiota.