Location: Dairy and Functional Foods Research
Project Number: 8072-30600-005-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Jun 4, 2025
End Date: Jun 3, 2030
Objective:
Objective 1: Optimize transgalactosylation conditions to produce prebiotic galacto-oligosaccharides by dairy probiotic bacteria, including Lactobacillus strains and substrates used and carbohydrate products.
Objective 2: Develop new fermented dairy products using yogurt starter cultures, media sources, prebiotics, and dietary fiber and their combinations to promote and preserve probiotic bacteria and beneficial metabolome.
Objective 3: Develop synbiotics that encapsulate health-promoting dairy bacteria and antioxidant compounds in dietary fiber or prebiotics to promote bacterial growth and short-chain fatty acid production.
Approach:
Functional foods and bioactive compounds hold the promise to provide health benefits beyond basic nutritional requirements, yet more research is necessary to realize their full potential. Our research will focus on producing bioactive compounds from dairy and plant-based products. We will identify bioactive oligosaccharides released through the enzymatic transgalactosylation of lactose and investigate the effect of galacto-oligosaccharides on probiotic bacteria. We will characterize novel prebiotics and dietary fiber by comparing them with galacto-oligosaccharides. We will develop synbiotics in live microbial systems such as yogurt. Oligosaccharide anti-adhesive activity against pathogens will be determined by biofilm formation on surfaces. In summary, we will develop novel health-promoting dairy- and plant-based products that will benefit the dairy and specialty crop industries, farmers, and consumers.