Tolerance of Bifidobacterium human isolates to bile, acid and oxygen

• We report the viability of different human intestinal bifidobacteria in the presence of acid, bile and oxygen.
• The data were obtained from the largest collection of human independent bifidobacteria strains.
• The study characterizes the biological behaviour of the human bifidobacteria populations.
• We showed that B. longum and B. breve have the best biological tolerance to oxygen, bile and acid stresses.

Bifidobacteria are part of the human gastrointestinal microbiota and are used as probiotics in functional food products because of their health promoting properties. However, only few data are available on the phenotypic characteristics displayed by human bifidobacteria strain populations. In this study we compared the in vitro tolerance to acid, bile and oxygen of the largest number of independent human intestinal strains. Bile and acid tolerance varied among species and independent strains within a species: B. adolescentis strains were the most tolerant to bile followed by Bifidobacterium longum and B. breve; B. longum, B. breve and B. dentium showed the highest viability levels after exposure to acid pH. Oxygen tolerance was largely distributed among intestinal bifidobacteria: B. longum, B. breve and B. bifidum showed the highest oxygen tolerance. B. adolescentis showed the highest susceptibility to acid and oxygen stresses. The present study gave us the opportunity to update our knowledge about the phenotypic characteristics of human intestinal bifidobacteria. B. longum and B. breve harboured the best tolerance to oxygen, bile and acid stresses. Based on such biological characters, B. longum and B. breve species showed the highest interest in terms of potential selection of human probiotics.