Growth of selected probiotic bacterial strains with fructans from Nendran banana and garlic

- This is the first report on the prebiotic efficacy of fructans from Nendran banana, a variety traditionally used as weaning food.
- The prebiotic activity score of fructans was higher for Nendran banana than garlic.
- These findings may help to expand the application of garlic and banana extracted fructan as functional ingredients.

This work assesses the utilization of fructan from garlic cultivars and Nendran banana as prebiotics. Fructans from both sources significantly stimulated the growth of four strains of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) to varying degrees. In case of garlic, 1-kestose (≥60%) was utilized more compared to nystose (≥38%). Nendran banana showed the highest prebiotic activity score, even higher than commercial FOS and inulin. In all three foods, presence of FOS stimulated better growth than inulin. Lactobacillus plantarum alone produced butyrate. These results show that in vitro prebiotic activity of fructan from the two sources is directly related to its structure and the specific strains of LAB. Therefore, fructans from hill and country garlic and Nendran banana cultivars can be explored as functional ingredients targeted towards modulation of the gut micro-biota and in synbiotic preparations.

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