Chan Mei Zhi Alcine, Silver Award Recipient at Global Food Science Student Virtual Competition 2021
Chan Mei Zhi Alcine, Silver Award Recipient at the Global Food Science Student Virtual Competition 2021
PhD student CHAN Mei Zhi Alcine has received the silver award at the Global Food Science Student Virtual Competition 2021. The 2021 Global Food Science Student Competition is a virtual event during annual conference of International Society for Nutraceutical and Functional Foods (ISNFF 2021), held on 17 to 20 October 2021 in Nanjing, China.
Abstract of presentation
Amidst trends in non-dairy probiotic foods and functional coffees, PhD student Alcine has recently developed a fermented coffee brew containing high live counts of the probiotics Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG and Saccharomyces boulardii CNCM-I745. However, it remains unclear if probiotic fermentation of coffee brews is translatable to measurable potential health outcomes. Here, to provide preliminary evidence for the functionality of probiotic fermented coffee brews, she aimed to discover and correlate bioactive metabolites with the in vitro bioactivities of coffee brews fermented with L. rhamnosus GG and/or S. boulardii CNCM-I745. By using an untargeted LC-QTOF-MS/MS based metabolomics approach coupled with validated multivariate analyses, bioactive metabolites were uncovered. These include the production of 2-isopropylmalate by S. boulardii CNCM-I745, as well as the production of aromatic amino acid catabolites (indole-3-lactate, p-hydroxyphenyllactate, 3-phenyllactate) and hydroxydodecanoate by L. rhamnosus GG. These metabolites have been extensively documented by others to elicit wide ranging bioactivities such as anti-microbial, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory properties. However, improvements in in vitro bioactivities, relating to α-amylase and α-glucosidase inhibition, antiglycative activities, anti-cancer, cellular antioxidant activities, and anti-inflammatory activities were not improved by probiotic fermentation. Therefore, bioactive metabolites produced during probiotic-induced food fermentations may not necessarily confer additional health benefits compared to non-fermented counterparts.