Patent ID: 8728743

Claim:
A method of selecting strains of microorganisms for use in a food product that induce a modulation of the pattern of surface glycosylation or of sugar composition of intestinal epithelial cells, said method comprising the following steps: (a) providing a supernatant from a culture of a strain of microorganism to be tested (“trial supernatant”), and a culture medium which has not been in contact with bacteria (“control supernatant”), (b) providing cells of a cell line model reproducing all or some of the mechanisms of glycolysate production in intestinal epithelial cells, (c) providing a lectin coupled to a fluorochrome, wherein said lectin is specific towards a sugar, (d) bringing into contact and incubating the trial supernatant from step (a) with cells from step (b) recovering the resulting cells, incubating the recovered cells with said lectin from step (c) washing the resulting cells, and then measuring the resulting mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the fluorochrome coupled to said lectin, (e) bringing into contact and incubating the control supernatant from step (a) with cells from step (b), recovering the resulting cells, incubating the recovered cells with said lectin from step (c), washing the resulting cells, and then measuring the resulting mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of the fluorochrome coupled to said lectin, (f) comparing the MFI of step (d) with the MFI of step (e), wherein a difference of at least 20% indicates that said strain of microorganism induces a modulation of the pattern of surface glycosylation or of sugar composition of intestinal epithelial cells; and (g) introducing into said food product said strain of microorganism selected from step (f) which exhibit an MFI differential of at least 20%.