Beneficial Microbes, March 2013; 4(1): 1-2
Wageningen Academic P u b l i s h e r s
http://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/BM2013.x001 - Wednesday, October 04, 2017 9:35:26 AM - IP Address:80.82.77.83
Foreword Here before you is the first issue of the fourth volume of ‘Beneficial Microbes’. Last year we received the exciting news that in the summer of 2013 the journal would get an impact factor from Thomson ISI. I am looking forward to the ‘verdict’ of the scientific community as to what that factor might be. It is likely to start low, but I am confident that it will climb over the coming years. Volume 3 contained numerous interesting manuscripts in areas as broad as animal and human health, in vitro and in vivo mechanistic studies, work on (potential) probiotics as well as prebiotics, or the effect of the microbiota on obesity. Also this year, we will do our best to fill the journal with many more interesting papers. About 30% of the contributions are Open Access, an increase on the previous year. In 2012, as in 2011, we had an opinion paper. The one in 2012 was by Lahtinen et al. on the link, or rather the absence of a link, between Lactobacillus and obesity (Lahtinen et al., 2012). This shows the controversy in the research area, or perhaps the difficulty for certain researchers to properly interpret the complex data sets. As editor-in-chief, I hope to facilitate these discussions, in addition to publishing high-quality manuscripts. Looking further ahead, we are preparing a few special issues for Beneficial Microbes. These issues are focused on a specific subject for which we will invite authors to write a (peer-reviewed) article. As the production of a special issue is a lengthy process, the first will probably only appear towards the end of the year. We are running two scientific areas in parallel: one on the role of the microbiota in obesity, which has attracted tremendous interest over the past few years (see e.g. Venema, 2012); and the other on beneficial microbes and their role in skin and hair health, with Audrey Gueniche as guest editor. The current issue contains selected contributions presented during the 3rd TNO Beneficial Microbes Conference held on 26-28 March 2012, in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands. The issue contains both original research papers as well as reviews. Even though since December 14 of last year the phrase probiotic can no longer be applied in Europe, since the EFSA considers the phrase to be a health claim due to the definition of probiotics, this has not prevented the scientific community, convinced of the beneficial properties of these bugs, from continuing to use the term. The first two manuscripts in this issue describe probiotics for infants. The manuscript by Enos et al. (2013) reviews the use of probiotics and other essential nutrients for the first 1000 days of life in the developing world. Probiotics can have a major impact in these first 3 years. At first rather controversial, but now increasingly accepted, is the concept of beneficial microbes present in human milk, as described by Jeurink et al. (2013). In addition to the human milk oligosaccharides that may stimulate endogenous
bacteria in the baby’s gut, beneficial microbes present in breast milk give additional protection to the newborn. A number of breast milk isolates have been commercialized into probiotics. The third manuscript by Rothe and Blaut (2013) describes the development of the gut microbiota and the influence of dietary components on this. It is a comprehensive overview and shows how diet can help shape a beneficial microbiota. The next two contributions focus on Clostridium difficile infection and its life-threatening effects on the host. The paper by Petrof et al. (2013) discusses microbial ecosystems therapeutics, where essentially the endogenous (disturbed) microbiota, which has been overgrown by C. difficile, is replaced by a 30+-strain mixture that has been cultured in the lab. Despite this being a more elegant approach than faecal transplantation (Agito et al., 2013), where it is not clear what other microorganisms are also transplanted (e.g. viruses, pathogens), the ‘Repoopulate’ strategy (a phrase from the authors that was unfortunately deleted from the manuscript by the reviewers for not being scientific enough, although I quite like it) is not currently approved on a large scale, despite having saved the lives of a number of patients, and despite being highly effective (>90%). The manuscript by Hell et al. (2013) reviews the role of probiotics in C. difficile infections, and proposes the need for a multispecies probiotic to combat C. difficile based on the positive results obtained with such a multispecies product. Although not entirely the same concept, both papers show that it is possible to treat C. difficile infection, refractive to antibiotics, with a multistrain approach. The paper by Brandzaeg (2013) is a great review on the role of the intestinal epithelium as sentinel or gate-keeper, keeping the microbes present in the lumen of the gut in check. It is an essential introduction to the interplay between epithelium and immune system to control the intestinal microbiota. However, most of our knowledge in this area stems from in vitro and animal (mostly rodent) work. The review by Meijerink et al. (2013) describes some
ISSN 1876-2833 print, ISSN 1876-2891 online, DOI 10.3920/BM2013.x0011
http://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/BM2013.x001 - Wednesday, October 04, 2017 9:35:26 AM - IP Address:80.82.77.83
Koen Venema, editor-in-chief
of the challenges we face by translating in vitro research to clinical trials. One of these issues is the fact that we work with live microbial entities, which may behave differently in vitro and in real life. The contribution of Tsilingiri and Rescigno (2013) describes the approach taken to isolate the active fraction of beneficial microbes, e.g. from the culture supernatant or after cell fractionation, to develop what they coin postbiotics. These purified molecular entities are supposed to be much more stable than the living entities they are derived from, and should give much more clearcut results. That genetic stability of probiotics is in fact a real problem was recently shown by Sybesma et al. (2013), who showed that isolates of LGG, from several commercial products, lacked the pili genes that are involved in adhesion of the strain to the gut epithelium (von Ossowski et al., 2010), which is hypothesized to contribute to the probiotic functioning of LGG. The latter two contributions in this issue deal with regulatory aspects. The manuscript by Hoffmann (2013) describes the regulatory aspects of health claims for proand prebiotics in Europe and the USA. The EFSA in Europe (Van Loveren et al., 2012) is considered by many to be far too strict, whereas the FDA in the US is far less so (Sanders et al., 2011). Hoffmann discusses whether there should be a middle way. The contribution by Rijkers et al. (2013) describes the perception of (Dutch) consumers of the beneficial effects of probiotics on health. Almost 50% of consumers did not believe that probiotics had any health benefits. We scientists also have a long way to go as long as consumers believe that probiotics can be found in beer or potatoes. On the other hand, in New Zealand, the majority of GPs were unable to clearly define a probiotic (Schultz et al., 2011), so it is perhaps not surprising that the average consumer does not know the facts. Unintentionally, the contributions gathered in this issue focus on probiotics. However, there is clearly also a lot of research going on in the area of prebiotics, increasing the number and activity of the endogenous beneficial microbes. I am writing this foreword at the Keystone Symposium on The Gut Microbiome: the Effector/Regulatory Immune Network in Taos, NM, USA. It is evident here that the endogenous microbiota plays an enormous role in health and disease, from inflammation to autism. Therefore, prebiotics that modulate the endogenous microbiota are also very important. Koen Venema Editor-in-chief
2
References Agito, M.D., Atreja, A. and Rizk, M.K., 2013. Fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent C. difficile infection: Ready for prime time? Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine 80: 101-108. Brandtzaeg, P., 2013. Gate-keeper function of the intestinal epithelium. Beneficial Microbes 4: 67-82. Enos, M.K., Burton, J.P., Dols, J., Buhulata, S., Changalucha, J. and Reid, G., 2013. Probiotics and nutrients for the first 1000 days of life in the developing world. Beneficial Microbes 4: 3-16. Hell, M., Bernhofer, C., Stalzer, P., Kern, J.M. and Claassen, E., 2013. Probiotics in Clostridium difficile infection: reviewing the need for a multistrain probiotic. Beneficial Microbes 4: 39-51. Hoffmann, D.E., 2013. Health claim regulation of probiotics in the USA and the EU: is there a middle way? Beneficial Microbes 4: 109-115. Jeurink, P.V., Van Bergenhenegouwen, J., Jiménez, E., Knippels, L.M.J., Fernández, L., Garssen, J., Knol, J., Rodríguez, J.M. and Martín, R., 2013. Human milk: a source of more life than we imagine. Beneficial Microbes 4: 17-30. Lahtinen, S.J., Davis, E. and Ouwehand, A.C., 2012. Lactobacillus species causing obesity in humans: where is the evidence? Beneficial Microbes 3: 171-174. Meijerink, M., Mercenier, A. and Wells, J.M., 2013. Challenges in translational research on probiotic lactobacilli: from in vitro assays to clinical trials. Beneficial Microbes 4: 83-100. Petrof, E.O., Claud, E.C., Gloor, G.B. and Allen-Vercoe, E., 2013. Microbial ecosystems therapeutics: a new paradigm in medicine? Beneficial Microbes 4: 53-65. Rijkers, G.T., Bimmel, D., Grevers, D., Den Haan, N. and Hristova, Y., 2013. Consumer perception of beneficial effects of probiotics for human health. Beneficial Microbes 4: 117-121. Rothe, M. and Blaut, M., 2013. Evolution of the gut microbiota and the influence of diet. Beneficial Microbes 4: 31-37. Sanders, M.E., Heimbach, J.T., Pot, B., Tancredi, D.J., Lenoir-Wijnkoop, I., Lähteenmäki-Uutela, A., Gueimonde, M. and Bañares, S., 2011. Health claims substantiation for probiotic and prebiotic products. Gut Microbes 2: 127-133. Schultz, M., Baranchi, A., Thurston, L., Yu, Y.C., Wang, L., Chen, J., Sapsford, M., Chung, J., Binsadiq, M., Craig, L., Wilkins, B., McBride, D. and Herbison, P., 2011. Consumer demographics and expectations of probiotic therapy in New Zealand: results of a large telephone survey. New Zealand Medical Journal 124: 36-43. Sybesma, W., Molenaar, D., Van Ijcken, W., Venema, K. and Kort, R., 2013. Genome instability in Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. Applied Environmental Microbiology, in press. Tsilingiri, K. and Rescigno, M., 2013. Postbiotics: what else? Beneficial Microbes 4: 101-107. Van Loveren, H., Sanz, Y. and Salminen, S., 2012. Health claims in Europe: probiotics and prebiotics as case examples. Annual Review of Food Science and Technology 3: 247-261. Venema, K., 2012. Foreword. Beneficial Microbes 3: 1-2. Von Ossowski, I., Reunanen, J., Satokari, R., Vesterlund, S., Kankainen, M., Huhtinen, H., Tynkkynen, S., Salminen, S., De Vos, W.M., Palva, A., 2010. Mucosal adhesion properties of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG SpaCBA and SpaFED pilin subunits. Applied Environmental Microbiology 76: 2049-2057.
Beneficial Microbes 4(1)
Wageningen Academic P u b l i s h e r s
http://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/BM2013.x001 - Wednesday, October 04, 2017 9:35:26 AM - IP Address:80.82.77.83
Foreword Here before you is the first issue of the fourth volume of ‘Beneficial Microbes’. Last year we received the exciting news that in the summer of 2013 the journal would get an impact factor from Thomson ISI. I am looking forward to the ‘verdict’ of the scientific community as to what that factor might be. It is likely to start low, but I am confident that it will climb over the coming years. Volume 3 contained numerous interesting manuscripts in areas as broad as animal and human health, in vitro and in vivo mechanistic studies, work on (potential) probiotics as well as prebiotics, or the effect of the microbiota on obesity. Also this year, we will do our best to fill the journal with many more interesting papers. About 30% of the contributions are Open Access, an increase on the previous year. In 2012, as in 2011, we had an opinion paper. The one in 2012 was by Lahtinen et al. on the link, or rather the absence of a link, between Lactobacillus and obesity (Lahtinen et al., 2012). This shows the controversy in the research area, or perhaps the difficulty for certain researchers to properly interpret the complex data sets. As editor-in-chief, I hope to facilitate these discussions, in addition to publishing high-quality manuscripts. Looking further ahead, we are preparing a few special issues for Beneficial Microbes. These issues are focused on a specific subject for which we will invite authors to write a (peer-reviewed) article. As the production of a special issue is a lengthy process, the first will probably only appear towards the end of the year. We are running two scientific areas in parallel: one on the role of the microbiota in obesity, which has attracted tremendous interest over the past few years (see e.g. Venema, 2012); and the other on beneficial microbes and their role in skin and hair health, with Audrey Gueniche as guest editor. The current issue contains selected contributions presented during the 3rd TNO Beneficial Microbes Conference held on 26-28 March 2012, in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands. The issue contains both original research papers as well as reviews. Even though since December 14 of last year the phrase probiotic can no longer be applied in Europe, since the EFSA considers the phrase to be a health claim due to the definition of probiotics, this has not prevented the scientific community, convinced of the beneficial properties of these bugs, from continuing to use the term. The first two manuscripts in this issue describe probiotics for infants. The manuscript by Enos et al. (2013) reviews the use of probiotics and other essential nutrients for the first 1000 days of life in the developing world. Probiotics can have a major impact in these first 3 years. At first rather controversial, but now increasingly accepted, is the concept of beneficial microbes present in human milk, as described by Jeurink et al. (2013). In addition to the human milk oligosaccharides that may stimulate endogenous
bacteria in the baby’s gut, beneficial microbes present in breast milk give additional protection to the newborn. A number of breast milk isolates have been commercialized into probiotics. The third manuscript by Rothe and Blaut (2013) describes the development of the gut microbiota and the influence of dietary components on this. It is a comprehensive overview and shows how diet can help shape a beneficial microbiota. The next two contributions focus on Clostridium difficile infection and its life-threatening effects on the host. The paper by Petrof et al. (2013) discusses microbial ecosystems therapeutics, where essentially the endogenous (disturbed) microbiota, which has been overgrown by C. difficile, is replaced by a 30+-strain mixture that has been cultured in the lab. Despite this being a more elegant approach than faecal transplantation (Agito et al., 2013), where it is not clear what other microorganisms are also transplanted (e.g. viruses, pathogens), the ‘Repoopulate’ strategy (a phrase from the authors that was unfortunately deleted from the manuscript by the reviewers for not being scientific enough, although I quite like it) is not currently approved on a large scale, despite having saved the lives of a number of patients, and despite being highly effective (>90%). The manuscript by Hell et al. (2013) reviews the role of probiotics in C. difficile infections, and proposes the need for a multispecies probiotic to combat C. difficile based on the positive results obtained with such a multispecies product. Although not entirely the same concept, both papers show that it is possible to treat C. difficile infection, refractive to antibiotics, with a multistrain approach. The paper by Brandzaeg (2013) is a great review on the role of the intestinal epithelium as sentinel or gate-keeper, keeping the microbes present in the lumen of the gut in check. It is an essential introduction to the interplay between epithelium and immune system to control the intestinal microbiota. However, most of our knowledge in this area stems from in vitro and animal (mostly rodent) work. The review by Meijerink et al. (2013) describes some
ISSN 1876-2833 print, ISSN 1876-2891 online, DOI 10.3920/BM2013.x0011
http://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/BM2013.x001 - Wednesday, October 04, 2017 9:35:26 AM - IP Address:80.82.77.83
Koen Venema, editor-in-chief
of the challenges we face by translating in vitro research to clinical trials. One of these issues is the fact that we work with live microbial entities, which may behave differently in vitro and in real life. The contribution of Tsilingiri and Rescigno (2013) describes the approach taken to isolate the active fraction of beneficial microbes, e.g. from the culture supernatant or after cell fractionation, to develop what they coin postbiotics. These purified molecular entities are supposed to be much more stable than the living entities they are derived from, and should give much more clearcut results. That genetic stability of probiotics is in fact a real problem was recently shown by Sybesma et al. (2013), who showed that isolates of LGG, from several commercial products, lacked the pili genes that are involved in adhesion of the strain to the gut epithelium (von Ossowski et al., 2010), which is hypothesized to contribute to the probiotic functioning of LGG. The latter two contributions in this issue deal with regulatory aspects. The manuscript by Hoffmann (2013) describes the regulatory aspects of health claims for proand prebiotics in Europe and the USA. The EFSA in Europe (Van Loveren et al., 2012) is considered by many to be far too strict, whereas the FDA in the US is far less so (Sanders et al., 2011). Hoffmann discusses whether there should be a middle way. The contribution by Rijkers et al. (2013) describes the perception of (Dutch) consumers of the beneficial effects of probiotics on health. Almost 50% of consumers did not believe that probiotics had any health benefits. We scientists also have a long way to go as long as consumers believe that probiotics can be found in beer or potatoes. On the other hand, in New Zealand, the majority of GPs were unable to clearly define a probiotic (Schultz et al., 2011), so it is perhaps not surprising that the average consumer does not know the facts. Unintentionally, the contributions gathered in this issue focus on probiotics. However, there is clearly also a lot of research going on in the area of prebiotics, increasing the number and activity of the endogenous beneficial microbes. I am writing this foreword at the Keystone Symposium on The Gut Microbiome: the Effector/Regulatory Immune Network in Taos, NM, USA. It is evident here that the endogenous microbiota plays an enormous role in health and disease, from inflammation to autism. Therefore, prebiotics that modulate the endogenous microbiota are also very important. Koen Venema Editor-in-chief
2
References Agito, M.D., Atreja, A. and Rizk, M.K., 2013. Fecal microbiota transplantation for recurrent C. difficile infection: Ready for prime time? Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine 80: 101-108. Brandtzaeg, P., 2013. Gate-keeper function of the intestinal epithelium. Beneficial Microbes 4: 67-82. Enos, M.K., Burton, J.P., Dols, J., Buhulata, S., Changalucha, J. and Reid, G., 2013. Probiotics and nutrients for the first 1000 days of life in the developing world. Beneficial Microbes 4: 3-16. Hell, M., Bernhofer, C., Stalzer, P., Kern, J.M. and Claassen, E., 2013. Probiotics in Clostridium difficile infection: reviewing the need for a multistrain probiotic. Beneficial Microbes 4: 39-51. Hoffmann, D.E., 2013. Health claim regulation of probiotics in the USA and the EU: is there a middle way? Beneficial Microbes 4: 109-115. Jeurink, P.V., Van Bergenhenegouwen, J., Jiménez, E., Knippels, L.M.J., Fernández, L., Garssen, J., Knol, J., Rodríguez, J.M. and Martín, R., 2013. Human milk: a source of more life than we imagine. Beneficial Microbes 4: 17-30. Lahtinen, S.J., Davis, E. and Ouwehand, A.C., 2012. Lactobacillus species causing obesity in humans: where is the evidence? Beneficial Microbes 3: 171-174. Meijerink, M., Mercenier, A. and Wells, J.M., 2013. Challenges in translational research on probiotic lactobacilli: from in vitro assays to clinical trials. Beneficial Microbes 4: 83-100. Petrof, E.O., Claud, E.C., Gloor, G.B. and Allen-Vercoe, E., 2013. Microbial ecosystems therapeutics: a new paradigm in medicine? Beneficial Microbes 4: 53-65. Rijkers, G.T., Bimmel, D., Grevers, D., Den Haan, N. and Hristova, Y., 2013. Consumer perception of beneficial effects of probiotics for human health. Beneficial Microbes 4: 117-121. Rothe, M. and Blaut, M., 2013. Evolution of the gut microbiota and the influence of diet. Beneficial Microbes 4: 31-37. Sanders, M.E., Heimbach, J.T., Pot, B., Tancredi, D.J., Lenoir-Wijnkoop, I., Lähteenmäki-Uutela, A., Gueimonde, M. and Bañares, S., 2011. Health claims substantiation for probiotic and prebiotic products. Gut Microbes 2: 127-133. Schultz, M., Baranchi, A., Thurston, L., Yu, Y.C., Wang, L., Chen, J., Sapsford, M., Chung, J., Binsadiq, M., Craig, L., Wilkins, B., McBride, D. and Herbison, P., 2011. Consumer demographics and expectations of probiotic therapy in New Zealand: results of a large telephone survey. New Zealand Medical Journal 124: 36-43. Sybesma, W., Molenaar, D., Van Ijcken, W., Venema, K. and Kort, R., 2013. Genome instability in Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. Applied Environmental Microbiology, in press. Tsilingiri, K. and Rescigno, M., 2013. Postbiotics: what else? Beneficial Microbes 4: 101-107. Van Loveren, H., Sanz, Y. and Salminen, S., 2012. Health claims in Europe: probiotics and prebiotics as case examples. Annual Review of Food Science and Technology 3: 247-261. Venema, K., 2012. Foreword. Beneficial Microbes 3: 1-2. Von Ossowski, I., Reunanen, J., Satokari, R., Vesterlund, S., Kankainen, M., Huhtinen, H., Tynkkynen, S., Salminen, S., De Vos, W.M., Palva, A., 2010. Mucosal adhesion properties of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG SpaCBA and SpaFED pilin subunits. Applied Environmental Microbiology 76: 2049-2057.
Beneficial Microbes 4(1)
