Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, via Università, 100, 80055, Portici (NA) Italy.
Task Force on Microbiome Studies, Corso Umberto I, 40, 80100, Napoli, Italy.
FEMS Microbiol Rev. 2020 Jul 1;44(4):454-489. doi: 10.1093/femsre/fuaa015.
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are present in foods, the environment and the animal gut, although fermented foods (FFs) are recognized as the primary niche of LAB activity. Several LAB strains have been studied for their health-promoting properties and are employed as probiotics. FFs are recognized for their potential beneficial effects, which we review in this article. They are also an important source of LAB, which are ingested daily upon FF consumption. In this review, we describe the diversity of LAB and their occurrence in food as well as the gut microbiome. We discuss the opportunities to study LAB diversity and functional properties by considering the availability of both genomic and metagenomic data in public repositories, as well as the different latest computational tools for data analysis. In addition, we discuss the role of LAB as potential probiotics by reporting the prevalence of key genomic features in public genomes and by surveying the outcomes of LAB use in clinical trials involving human subjects. Finally, we highlight the need for further studies aimed at improving our knowledge of the link between LAB-fermented foods and the human gut from the perspective of health promotion.
乳酸菌（LAB）存在于食物、环境和动物肠道中，但发酵食品（FF）被认为是 LAB 活动的主要场所。一些 LAB 菌株因其具有促进健康的特性而被研究，并被用作益生菌。FF 因其潜在的有益作用而受到关注，我们在本文中对此进行了综述。它们也是 LAB 的重要来源，人们在食用 FF 时每天都会摄入 LAB。在这篇综述中，我们描述了 LAB 的多样性及其在食品和肠道微生物群中的存在。我们通过考虑公共存储库中基因组和宏基因组数据的可用性，以及用于数据分析的不同最新计算工具，讨论了研究 LAB 多样性和功能特性的机会。此外，我们通过报告公共基因组中关键基因组特征的流行情况，并调查 LAB 在涉及人体临床试验中的应用结果，讨论了 LAB 作为潜在益生菌的作用。最后，我们强调需要进一步研究，从促进健康的角度出发，提高我们对 LAB 发酵食品与人类肠道之间关系的认识。
