Development of a Rapid Method for the Screening of Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA)-Producing Strains of Bifidobacterium breve

This study was performed to isolate some strains of Bifidobacterium breve from fecal materials of neonates and to screen them for the biotransformation activity of converting linoleic acid into conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Fecal samples were collected from twenty healthy neonates between 14 and 100 days old, and four hundred colonies were randomly selected from a Bifidobacterium selective transoligosaccharide medium. A duplex polymerase chain reaction technique was developed for the rapid and accurate molecular characterization of the B. breve strains that have been reported to show the species-specific characteristic of CLA production. They are identified by 16S ribosomal DNA, fructose-6-phosphate phosphoketolase encoding genes (xfp), and rapid pulsed field gel electrophoresis. Thirty-six isolates were identified as B. breve, and just two of the 12 neonates were harboring B. breve strains. Each isolate showed different CLA-producing ability in the spectrophotometric assay. All of the positive strains from the primary spectrophotometric assay were confirmed for their CLA-producing activities using gas-chromatographic analysis, and their conversion rates were different, depending on the strain isolated in this study. Some strains of B. breve were successfully isolated and characterized based on the CLA-producing activity, and further studies are necessary to characterize the enzyme and the gene responsible for the enzyme activity.