Lactic Acid Bacteria as Probiotics: Current Status and Future Prospects

From the last decade, the use of probiotics for human health has received greater recognition as scientific authentication and validation keep on increasing in the properties, functionality, and beneficial effects of probiotics Lactobacillus on human health. In the group of lactic acid bacteria the Lactobacillus is the predominately strains and most utilized for the production of fermented dairy products, sourdough, vegetable foods, meat or used as probiotics. Lactobacilli are considered especially as beneficial bacteria, because they are recommendable microbiota of the gastrointestinal tract, urinary, and genital systems without causing any disease. The gastrointestinal tract absorb the probiotics and stimulates the immune system and activate the regulatory T cells that further release the IL-10. On the other hand, bacteriocins a kind of ribosomal produced antimicrobial peptides synthesized by different bacteria and stable to heat. Many researchers purified and identified bacteriocins for utilization in food industry to extend food preservation time, manage pathogenic diseases and cancer therapy, and maintain human health. In the future Bacteriocins possibly become a potential drug candidate to treat multiple drugs resistance pathogens instead of antibiotics. The European Food and Safety Authority deny the health claims of probiotics because of unavailability of molecular mechanisms and their modes of action, irreproducibility of trials, as well as strong individual responses of the hosts, and strain-specificity. Similarly, information on the dose effects are still lacking and need explored further so that probiotic become potential substitute of the antibiotics for the cure of the diseases. Various techniques have been developed for construction of genomic modifications in Lactobacillus, including food-grade ones which results in strains labelled as non-GMO. These are still very useful for the multitude Lactic acid bacteria applications wherever GMOs are not acceptable. Nowadays consumers are aware of gut health and concept of preventative health care, therefore growing demand for probiotics increasing day by day. Therefore, the present review focused on the developments and applications of the Lactobacillus and bacteriocins producing lactobacillus.