Probiotic characteristics in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains: Properties for application in food industries

Abstract In this work, the probiotic or health-beneficial potential of 142 Saccharomyces strains isolated from food ecosystems belonging to the collection of the Yeast Biotechnology Laboratory (University of Castilla-La Mancha) have been studied. They were screened for their ability to resist and grow when exposed to simulated in vitro digestion conditions. As a result, 44 strains showed good kinetic properties and were chosen through k-means and one-way ANOVA and used to assess other important probiotic characteristics. For the second step, a Principal Component Analysis was run with the results from auto-aggregation and hydrophobicity at 30 °C assays, antibiotic resistance and antimicrobial activity, and 10 yeasts were then selected in order to study their biofilm formation capability, auto-aggregation and hydrophobicity at 37 °C, viability and biofilm formation after simulated sequential salivary-gastric-intestinal digestion. The most relevant results were those that showed the biofilm formation and hydrophobicity behaviour, so they were used for characterized the most promising probiotic candidates. The final results showed that the strains 132, 139 and 146 were the best ones.