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Klaassens et al. Microbiome Res Rep 2024;3:38 Microbiome Research
DOI: 10.20517/mrr.2024.13
Reports

Original Article Open Access

Effect of protein modification in synbiotic infant
formula on probiotic metabolic activity and bacterial

composition in an infant gut-model

1
Eline Suzanne Klaassens 1 , Mirna Lilian Baak , Nienke Jacobine Mekkes 1 , Radhika Bongoni 1 ,
Monika Schaubeck 2

1
BaseClear B.V., Leiden 2333 BE, the Netherlands.
2
Research & Development, HiPP GmbH & Co. Vertrieb KG, Pfaffenhofen 85276, Germany.
Correspondence to: Dr. Monika Schaubeck, Research & Development, HiPP GmbH & Co. Vertrieb KG, Georg-Hipp-Str. 7,
Pfaffenhofen 85276, Germany. E-mail: monika.schaubeck@hipp.de

How to cite this article: Klaassens ES, Baak ML, Mekkes NJ, Bongoni R, Schaubeck M. Effect of protein modification in synbiotic
infant formula on probiotic metabolic activity and bacterial composition in an infant gut-model. Microbiome Res Rep 2024;3:38.
https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/mrr.2024.13
Received: 21 Feb 2024 First Decision: 12 Apr 2024 Revised: 30 May 2024 Accepted: 25 Jun 2024 Published: 28 Jun 2024

Academic Editors: Bo Yang, Marco Ventura Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

Abstract
Aim: Microbial colonization of the neonatal gut is pivotal in priming the infant’s immune system. Human milk (HM)
is the best nutrition for infants and supports the development of the microbiota due to prebiotic compounds and
probiotic microorganisms. When exclusive breastfeeding is not possible, infant formula (IF) with probiotics is a
strategy to support the infant’s microbiome development. However, knowledge about the effects of the infant gut
microbiota and different compounds in IF on individual probiotic strains is limited, as strain-level detection in a
complex ecosystem is challenging. The aim of the present study was to show the effects of IF with different protein
forms on the metabolic activity of two probiotic strains isolated from HM in a complex ecosystem.

Methods: By using an ex-vivo infant gut model containing infant donor-microbiota, the effects of IF with either
intact or extensively hydrolyzed protein on the metabolic activity of the donor microbiota, as well as two probiotic
strains [Limosilactobacillus fermentum (L. fermentum) CECT 5716 (Lf) and Bifidobacterium breve (B. breve) DSM
32583 (Bb)], were analyzed. A new bioinformatic pipeline combined with a specific infant microbiome database
was used to explore shotgun metagenome datasets (1200 Megabases) for taxonomic identification and strain-
level tracking.

© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.

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