Safety assessment of the Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588® probiotic strain including evaluation of antimicrobial sensitivity and presence of Clostridium toxin genes in vitro and teratogenicity in vivo.

Probiotics are live microorganisms ingested for the purpose of conferring a health benefit on the host. Development of new probiotics includes the need for safety evaluations that should consider factors such as pathogenicity, infectivity, virulence factors, toxicity, and metabolic activity. Clostridium butyricum MIYAIRI 588(®) (CBM 588(®)), an anaerobic spore-forming bacterium, has been developed as a probiotic for use by humans and food animals. Safety studies of this probiotic strain have been conducted and include assessment of antimicrobial sensitivity, documentation of the lack of Clostridium toxin genes, and evaluation of CBM 588(®) on reproductive and developmental toxicity in a rodent model. With the exception of aminoglycosides, to which anaerobes are intrinsically resistant, CBM 588(®) showed sensitivity to all antibiotic classes important in human and animal therapeutics. In addition, analysis of the CBM 588(®) genome established the absence of genes for encoding for α, β, or ε toxins and botulin neurotoxins types A, B, E, or F. There were no deleterious reproductive and developmental effects observed in mice associated with the administration of CBM 588(®) These data provide further support for the safety of CBM 588(®) for use as a probiotic in animals and humans.