Practical identification of human originated Lactobacillus species by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) for probiotic use.

Probiotics are gaining popularity and increasing the importance of their accurate speciation. Lactobacillus species are commonly used as probiotic strains mostly of clinical importance. Present knowledge indicates that at least 14 Lactobacillus species are associated with the human intestinal tract. Currently, researchers are interested in developing efficient techniques for screening and selecting probiotics bacteria, but unfortunately most of these methods are time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly. The aim of this study is to develop reliable, rapid and accurate method to identify 14 references Lactobacillus species that could have been found in the human alimentary tract by 16S ribosomal DNA restriction analysis. In this study, to develop an effective method for the genotype-based identification of the reference Lactobacillus species, 1.5 kb of 16S rRNA nucleotide sequences of 14 Lactobacillus were collected from the Gene Bank aligned, in silico restricted and analyzed in respect to their 16S-rRNA restriction fragment polymorphism. In silico restriction profiles of 16S-rRNA indicated that FspBI, HinfI and DraI restriction enzymes (RE) are convenient for differentiation of 14 Lactobacillus species in human intestinal tract except Lb. casei and Lb. paracasei. The patterns of our experimental findings obtained from 16S PCR-ARDRA completely confirmed our in silico patterns. The present work demonstrated that 16S PCR-ARDRA method with FspBI, HinfI and DraI RE is a rapid, accurate and reliable method for the identification of Lactobacillus species from human alimentary tract, especially during the identification of large numbers of isolates and any laboratory equipped with a thermo cycler for probiotic use.