Molecular diversity of bacteria in commercially available "Spirulina" food supplements

PeerJ
Elisabeth VardakaMaria Moustaka-Gouni

Abstract

The cyanobacterium Arthrospira is among the most well-known food supplements worldwide known as "Spirulina." While it is a widely recognized health-promoting natural product, there are no reports on the molecular diversity of commercially available brands of "Spirulina" supplements and the occurrence of other cyanobacterial and heterotrophic bacterial microorganisms in these products. In this study, 454-pyrosequencing analysis of the total bacterial occurrence in 31 brands of "Spirulina" dietary supplements from the Greek market was applied for the first time. In all samples, operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of Arthrospira platensis were the predominant cyanobacteria. Some products contained additional cyanobacterial OTUs including a few known potentially toxic taxa. Moreover, 469 OTUs were detected in all 31 products collectively, with most of them being related to the Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. All samples included heterotrophic bacterial OTUs, ranging from 9-157 per product. Among the most common OTUs were ones closely related to taxa known for causing health issues (i.e., Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, Vibrio, Aeromonas, Clostridium, Bacillus, Fusobacterium, Enterococcus)....Continue Reading

References

Aug 26, 1998·International Journal of Food Microbiology·D W WarburtonU Purvis
Dec 21, 2002·The American Journal of Gastroenterology·Motoh IwasaYukihiko Adachi
Apr 25, 2008·Phytomedicine : International Journal of Phytotherapy and Phytopharmacology·Elias E MazokopakisEmmanuel S Ganotakis
Aug 12, 2009·Nature Methods·Christopher QuinceWilliam T Sloan
Apr 13, 2011·PloS One·Jan PawlowskiLaure Guillou
May 6, 2011·Journal of Applied Phycology·Yun-Ming LuYong-Huang Wen
Feb 12, 2014·PloS One·Kenan HadziavdicChristofer Troedsson
Apr 1, 2008·Journal of Phycology·Miroslav Gantar, Zorica Svirčev

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Citations

Mar 19, 2020·Journal of Basic Microbiology·Jinhui YuYuping Bi
Feb 10, 2017·Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity·Alberto FinamoreIlaria Peluso
Nov 19, 2018·Journal of Hazardous Materials·Korina ManolidiAnastasia Hiskia
Oct 26, 2021·The Science of the Total Environment·Olubunmi E AdejimiOrr H Shapiro

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Datasets Mentioned

BETA
SRR2057094

Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCR

Software Mentioned

PyroNoise
PAST
MOTHUR

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