Adhesion characteristics of lactobacillus is a criterion of the probiotic choice

A sampling of lactobacilli from the German National Collection of Microorganisms and L. fermentum 90 TS-4 (21) reference strain clone 3 (Russian Federation) were studied. The results indicate that the receptors on the surface of lactobacillus strains from the German collection had no structures complementary to type 1 fimbriae, though adhesins of some of them reacted with mannose and galactose receptors. Adhesion on a monolayer of continuous cell cultures showed that adhesion activity of lactobacilli was a function of many derivatives, and hence, the choice of a model for evaluation of the adhesion characteristics of the strain should be based on adhesins exhibiting universal properties in different test systems. One of them can be lectin-binding adhesin; its expression on the surface of cultures of lactobacilli from the German collection varies within the same range as was shown previously for lactobacilli, studied by the same criterion. The molecular weight of lectin-binding adhesin is 25-30 kDa, and the corresponding receptors are frequently present on various eukaryotic cells, and hence, cell models can be considered as the most adequate for studies of the competitive interactions between lactobacilli and adhesins of pathogenic microorganisms. © Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2008.