Vinderola Gabriel, Benkowski Andrzej, Bernardeau Marion, Chenoll Empar, Collado María Carmen, Cronin Ultan, Eckhardt Erik, Green Justin B, Ipharraguerre Ignacio R, Kemperman Rober, Lacroix Christophe, Minami Junichi, Wilkinson Martin, Sanders Mary Ellen, Salminen Seppo
Instituto de Lactología Industrial (CONICET-UNL), Facultad de Ingeniería Química, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina.
Eurofins Microbiology Laboratories, Madison, WI, United States.
Front Nutr. 2025 Jun 4;12:1582733. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1582733. eCollection 2025.
A "postbiotic" is . To encourage collaborative problem-solving to address the issues related to the characterization and quantification of postbiotics, a working group of academic and industry scientists involved in research or commercial production of postbiotics convened at the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) 2024 meeting. This paper reports the outcomes of that discussion. Postbiotics are potentially compositionally complex mixtures, leading us to anticipate that full characterization and quantification of all components of a postbiotic product is not feasible. However, confirmation of the identity and quantity of the progenitor microorganism(s), quantification of some of its functional components, and a suitable description of the process of inactivation will be needed to assure the product can be sufficiently described and consistently reproduced. Measurement and quantification must be fit for purpose. Some useful methods include flow cytometry (FC), including innovations such as imaging FC, which has evolved into a mainstream technique suited to quantify inanimate cells, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction, which complements FC by enabling quantification and identity of microbes to the strain level. Other methods can be utilized depending on the complexity, type of microorganisms used (bacteria, yeasts, filamentous fungi), number of strains and cell integrity (intact vs. fragmented). Hence, no 'gold standard' methodology - analogous to colony-forming units for probiotics - is envisioned for postbiotics. This perspective focuses on the required microbial composition of postbiotics, not on the optional metabolite components, which can be measured using well-established methods. We propose a decision tree to aid deliberation among different quantification methods for postbiotics under development and being commercialized. We recognize that the evolution of technologies will likely result in future refinement of this decision tree, and we emphasize that our intent is not to prescribe a rigid framework, but rather to provide guiding principles on approaches to quantifying postbiotics.
“后生元”是……为鼓励通过合作解决问题来应对与后生元的表征和定量相关的问题，一个由从事后生元研究或商业生产的学术和行业科学家组成的工作组在国际益生菌和益生元科学协会（ISAPP）2024年会议上召开了会议。本文报告了该讨论的结果。后生元可能是成分复杂的混合物，这使我们预计对后生元产品的所有成分进行全面表征和定量是不可行的。然而，需要确认产生该后生元的微生物的身份和数量、对其一些功能成分进行定量，并对灭活过程进行适当描述，以确保能够充分描述该产品并使其能够持续重现。测量和定量必须符合目的。一些有用的方法包括流式细胞术（FC），包括成像流式细胞术等创新技术，它已发展成为一种适用于定量无生命细胞的主流技术，以及定量聚合酶链反应，它通过能够将微生物定量到菌株水平来补充流式细胞术。根据复杂性、所用微生物的类型（细菌、酵母、丝状真菌）、菌株数量和细胞完整性（完整与破碎），可以使用其他方法。因此，对于后生元，没有设想类似于益生菌的菌落形成单位的“金标准”方法。本观点关注的是后生元所需的微生物组成，而不是可使用成熟方法测量的可选代谢物成分。我们提出了一个决策树，以帮助对正在开发和商业化的后生元的不同定量方法进行审议。我们认识到技术的发展可能会导致该决策树在未来得到完善，并且我们强调我们的意图不是规定一个僵化的框架，而是提供关于后生元定量方法的指导原则。
