Al-Asmari Fahad, Abdelshafy Asem M, Neetoo Hudaa, Zhang Yufeng
Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Agriculture and Food Sciences, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University - Assiut Branch, Assiut 71524, Egypt.
Int J Biol Macromol. 2025 Jul;318(Pt 2):145101. doi: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.145101. Epub 2025 Jun 8.
Probiotics are live and non-pathogenic bacteria that confer several health benefits to the human body when ingested in adequate amounts. Unfortunately, viability and function of probiotics in food and beverages can be affected by a myriad of factors including product composition, processing and storage conditions. On the other hand, prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates (oligosaccharides) that can enhance viability or support growth of probiotics. Many of these oligosaccharides can be sourced from natural gums which have been widely used in the food industry mainly to improve food texture. This review discusses the potential of natural gums as prebiotics, including gum Arabic (as a source of plant gum), guar gum (as a source of seeds gum) and xanthan gum (as a source of microbial gum), and their promising applications in the probiotic food industry such as production of synbiotic foods and probiotic microcapsules. Technical limitations in their application in food such as microbial degradation, decrease in viscosity during storage, pH-dependent solubility and unregulated hydration are also discussed. Also, the potential methods to prevent these limitations such as modification of natural gums by different methods were summarized. Furthermore, the future prospective and trends in the food applications of these natural gums were covered.
益生菌是活的非致病性细菌，当摄入足够量时，会给人体带来多种健康益处。不幸的是，食品和饮料中益生菌的活力和功能会受到多种因素的影响，包括产品成分、加工和储存条件。另一方面，益生元是不可消化的碳水化合物（低聚糖），可以提高益生菌的活力或支持其生长。许多这类低聚糖可以从天然胶中获取，天然胶在食品工业中已被广泛使用，主要用于改善食品质地。本文综述了天然胶作为益生元的潜力，包括阿拉伯胶（作为植物胶的来源）、瓜尔胶（作为种子胶的来源）和黄原胶（作为微生物胶的来源），以及它们在益生菌食品工业中的应用前景，如合生元食品和益生菌微胶囊的生产。还讨论了它们在食品应用中的技术限制，如微生物降解、储存期间粘度降低、pH值依赖性溶解性和不受控制的水合作用。此外，总结了防止这些限制的潜在方法，如通过不同方法对天然胶进行改性。此外，还涵盖了这些天然胶在食品应用中的未来前景和趋势。
