## 3 Results and Discussion
### Prebiotic Potential  
The growth kinetics of _L. acidophilus_ N, _L. plantarum_ S30, _L. sakei_ S16 and _L. brevis_ S27 were evaluated in terms of OD 600 nm during 20 h of fermentation. The polysaccharide (PWPs and PLM) utilization was compared with those of glucose and was shown on Figure 4.  
Figure 4: Optical density value (OD) of _L. acidophilus_ N, _L. plantarum_ S30, _L. sakei_ S16 and _L. brevis_ S27 strains in the presence of glucose (Glc), PWPs and PLM. All analyses were conducted in triplicate, and data are expressed as mean values \(\pm\) SD. Three-way ANOVA test: Sig. (\(p\) < 0.05), partial eta\({}^{2}\) (0.822–0.998), R\({}^{2}\) = 0.997 (R\({}^{2}\)A\({}_{\rm{Adj}}\) = 0.996). Figure 3: Biogel P2 chromatogram of _P. major_ low molecular fraction (PLM). The presented results revealed that the utilization of PWPs and PLM was strain specific and _Lactobacillus_ strains utilized the tested substrates in the analogous manner. All strains showed about two times higher growth rates values when cultivated on PLM compared to PWPs. Furthermore, similarly to glucose, PLM had a long logarithmic rate phase of up to the 20 th hour while PWPs was more rapidly depleted (by the 14 th hour for _L. acidophilus_ N and _L. plantarum_ S30, and by 6 th hour for _L. sakei_ S16 and _L. brevis_ S27). These results could confirm that the examined strains probably fermented only the hairy neutral regions of the pectin polysaccharide which were depleted till the 6-14 h. The short-chain oligosaccharides from PLM (Mw \(<\) 3000 Da, DP \(<\) 20) provided a longer term substrate utilization than the complex polysaccharide molecules from PWPs (Mw = 66 kDa) which needs firstly to be depolymerized by _Lactobacillus_ strains before its further metabolization. The presented results from the growth kinetics of _L. acidophilus_ N, _L. plantarum_ S30, _L. sakei_ S16 and _L. brevis_ S27 were statistically analysed using three-way ANOVA through tests of between-subject effects and [PERSON]'s HSD test (Supplementary Materials: Table S1). The statistical significance of the individual factors (three independent variables: bacterial strain, carbon source and time) and their combinations on the response (dependant variable: OD 600) was evaluated. The estimated values of Sig. (\(p<\) 0.05) and Partial Eta\({}^{2}\) (0.822-0.998) from the tests of between-subject effects indicated that the results of the individual factors and their combination interactions were statistically significant. The coefficient of determination was close to 1 (R\({}^{2}\) = 0.997), which revealed that there was a considerable linear relationship between the factors and the dependant variable. Moreover, the value of R\({}^{2}\) showed that with 99% confidence, the change in the response could be explained with the independent variables of the model. The slight difference between R\({}^{2}\) and the adjusted coefficient of determination (R\({}^{2}\)Adi) = 0.996) showed that some insignificant conditions were included in the model. The results from the conducted [PERSON]'s HSD tests for post-hoc analysis confirmed that in the different time points (0 h, 3 h, 6 h, 10 h, 14 h and 20 h) all the mean differences of the dependent variables were significant. Evidence on a better consumption of a structurally different type short chains saccharides compared to longer ones could be found in literature [48; 49; 50; 51; 52]. In vitro fermentations of xyloglucans, dextrans and various types of glucose containing polysaccharides have shown that some intestinal bacteria, which were not able to grow on polysaccharides, were able to completely ferment their oligosaccharidesadricatives with different degrees of polymerization [13; 48; 49; 50]. In their study, [PERSON] et al. [52] observed a strain-dependent capability of _Bifidobacteria_ to degrade fractrans of different lengths. Similarly to our results, they reported higher fermentation rates of short chains fractrans with a single uninterrupted exponential phase compared to long chain fractrans which were gradually consumed.