Biofilm-Based Nutraceuticals: A Better Solution to Diet-Based Interventions for Achieving Healthy Gut Microbiota

Abstract Microbial biofilms developed in-vitro and applied to agroecosystems are reported to restore their soil-plant-microbial relationships by supplying a mixture of diverse biochemicals that reinstate network interactions. Here we hypothesize that the same method can also be used to reinstate unhealthy human body ecosystem caused by altered gut microbiota due to modern lifestyle and dietary patterns. In the present study, we tested biochemicals exuded by a developed fungal-bacterial biofilm (BFEx) on the growth and development of five test gut microbes in a simulated gut environment with eight different dietary patterns. Live microbial cell concentrations of the cultures were analyzed after 24 and 48 hours of inoculation using a bacterial viability kit. In addition, BFEx was tested for cytotoxic activity using brine shrimp lethality assay. Results revealed that the live microbial cell concentrations of the mixed cultures increased while they decreased in the monocultures with the application of BFEx in all dietary patterns. The BFEx promoted the growth and possibly dormancy-breaking of the tested gut microbes. However, it seems that there is a need of an interaction of diverse microbes, if a beneficial outcome from the BFEx is to be achieved. Further, the BFEx showed no toxicity to brine shrimp nauplii, instead it supported for their survival for a while by supplying food sources. In conclusion, this biofilm-based method is a better solution than diet-based interventions for achieving healthy gut microbiota because the former is user-friendly and preserves food-choice-freedom of people, unlike the latter.