Science and Technology Innovation Center Guo Yongjie December 22, 2023
Lactobacillus johnsonii was originally a new strain of the genus Lactobacillus isolated and identified by American microbiologist John Johnson in 1980. After, decades of research, its safety and probiotic effects have been widely confirmed. In 2009 and 2010, it passed the EU QPS safety qualification and was included in my country's "List of Bacteria that Can be Used in Food".
The Hehe probiotic Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 is the result of ten years of research and industrialization by the International Probiotic Health and Medicine Joint Laboratory Research Team. This strain is a human commensal bacterium and is the 45th strain of Lactobacillus johnsonii to have its entire genome sequenced. Its genome information is stored in the NCBI database in the United States. Relevant research results have also been published in journals including Cancer Research, Gut Microbes, and other journals. The strain and related applications have also been granted two US patents and one EU patent. Three Chinese patents applied by Hehe Biotechnology are also on the public stage.
Based on years of research, we have discovered and confirmed that the main characteristics of Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 are its strong adhesion and colonization ability and excellent anti-inflammatory effect.
In an in vitro monolayer cell adhesion experiment using LS174T cells, the adhesion effect of Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 was higher than that of Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum 299V and Bifidobacterium lactis HN019. In human experiments, the subjects were randomly divided into a control group and a probiotic group. The probiotic group was given yogurt containing John's LBJ456 for 7 days, and the feces of the people before and after taking it were tested. It was found that the feces contained Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 reached its peak on the seventh day of taking yogurt. On the 60th day of the experiment, Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 could be detected in 50% of the feces of the probiotic group, and the number was still close to 40% before stopping taking the yogurt. %, indicating that it can colonize well in the human intestine.
For Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456, the mechanism of its super colonization ability can be discussed from the following aspects. The first is that it has extremely strong stomach acid tolerance. We know that the pH range of gastric acid, including before and after meals, is approximately between 1.2 and 3, and the transit time of probiotics in the stomach is approximately 5 minutes to 2 hours. Therefore, we compared the gastric acid tolerance of Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 with other common probiotics under simulated gastric acid conditions of pH 3, 2, 1.6, and 1.2. Experiments found that most tested strains maintained high activity after being cultured at pH 3 for 2 hours. When the pH finally reached 1.2, although the number of Lactobacillus johnsonii dropped by 3 orders of magnitude, it was the only surviving strain in the experiment. Therefore, extremely strong gastric acid tolerance is an important basis for its successful adherent colonization.
In addition, another important factor affecting the colonization ability of strains is the mucus-binding proteins they contain. Mucus-binding protein is a cell surface protein containing a typical signal peptide, which is covalently linked to the bacterial cell wall. It is usually found in lactic acid bacteria. It can bind to intestinal mucin through glycosyl modification, thereby achieving adhesion and colonization. The number of MBPs in different johnsonii strains was compared with other common probiotic strains and it was found that Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 had the highest number of MBPs, which partly explains the strain's better adhesive colonization ability, or Said to have better colonization and adhesion adaptability.
After successful colonization, the performance of probiotic effects becomes the only evaluation criterion for whether probiotics are effective. In animal experiments, it was found that Lactobacillus johnsonii can reduce the levels of inflammatory cytokines in the blood and liver while increasing the levels of some anti-inflammatory factors in the liver. In addition, Lactobacillus johnsonii LBJ456 can also reduce the number of natural killer cells in the blood, spleen, and liver, which is an important factor in causing inflammation.