Ha Eun-Mi
Department of Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, Catholic University of Daegu, Gyeongsan 38430, Republic of Korea.
J Microbiol Biotechnol. 2016 May 28;26(5):975-87. doi: 10.4014/jmb.1601.01063.
Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) is a representative probiotic. In particular, L. plantarum is the first commensal bacterium to colonize the intestine of infants. For this reason, the initial settlement of L. plantarum can play an important role in determining an infant's health as well as their eventual health status as an adult. In addition, L. plantarum combats pathogenic infections (such as Escherichia coli (E. coli), one of the early pathogenic colonizers in an unhealthy infant gut) by secreting antimicrobial substances. The aim of this research was to determine how L. plantarum combats E. coli infection and why it is a representative probiotic in the intestine. Consequently, this research observed that E. coli releases uracil. L. plantarum specifically recognizes E. coli-derived uracil, which increases the growth rate and production of antimicrobial substance of L. plantarum. In addition, through the inhibitory activity test, this study postulates that the antimicrobial substance is a protein and can be considered a bacteriocin-like substance. Therefore, this research assumes that L. plantarum exerts its antibacterial ability by recognizing E. coli and increasing its growth rate as a result, and this phenomenon could be one of the reasons for L. plantarum settling in the intestine of infants as a beneficial bacterium.
植物乳杆菌是一种具有代表性的益生菌。特别是，植物乳杆菌是最早定殖于婴儿肠道的共生细菌。因此，植物乳杆菌的初始定殖对于决定婴儿的健康以及他们成年后的最终健康状况可能起着重要作用。此外，植物乳杆菌通过分泌抗菌物质来对抗致病性感染（如大肠杆菌，它是不健康婴儿肠道中早期的致病定殖菌之一）。本研究的目的是确定植物乳杆菌如何对抗大肠杆菌感染以及它为何是肠道中的代表性益生菌。因此，本研究观察到大肠杆菌会释放尿嘧啶。植物乳杆菌能特异性识别源自大肠杆菌的尿嘧啶，这会提高植物乳杆菌的生长速率并增加其抗菌物质的产生。此外，通过抑制活性测试，本研究推测该抗菌物质是一种蛋白质，可被视为类细菌素物质。因此，本研究认为植物乳杆菌通过识别大肠杆菌并因此提高其生长速率来发挥抗菌能力，而这种现象可能是植物乳杆菌作为有益细菌定殖于婴儿肠道的原因之一。
