Oxford Academic Article

We recently used our products to help out the students at Oxford Academic in order to research and figure out which widely available probiotic supplements would be able to increase levels of gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA).

Excitingly our Lactobacillus Brevis actually had the most promising results and helped increase the most amount of GABA.

Please read below for the aim & conclusion, but if you would like to read the whole article please click the link below.

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Aims

Certain bacteria can produce gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) from glutamate in the human intestinal tract, leading to the possibility of altering GABA levels through diet. To this end, we assessed the ability of seven commercially available probiotic supplements to produce GABA.

Method and results

Probiotic strains were compared for GABA production in pure culture. The bacteria were inoculated at a concentration of 10⁷ CFU ml⁻¹ in 10 ml MRS supplemented with monosodium glutamate (1% w/v), both with and without oligofructose-enriched inulin (OFI) (1% w/v). Two strains with the highest production of GABA were further assessed for 48 h in pH-controlled anaerobic batch cultures inoculated with faecal bacteria. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC–MS) was used for quantification of GABA and microbiota composition was determined through 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Levilactobacillus brevis LB01 (CGMCC 16921) and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum 299v (DSM 9843) were the most efficient producers of GABA. High GABA levels (28.32 mmol l⁻¹ ± 0.29) were produced by the probiotic strain L. brevis LB01 at pH 5.4–5.6. This was significantly higher than the levels of GABA produced by L. plantarum (4.8 mmol l⁻¹ ± 6.8) and a negative control (2.9 mM ± 3.1). The addition of OFI did not further stimulate GABA production under the conditions tested. The ability of these strains to produce GABA in-vitro was further evaluated in a faecal microbiota environment. Once again, L.brevis LB01 produced the highest levels of GABA (40.24 mmol l⁻¹ ± 20.98).

Conclusions

L. brevis LB01 was found to be the most efficient probiotic strain, of those tested, for GABA production.