Antimicrobial Activity of Probiotic Lactobacilli Against Pathogenic Bacteria

The antimicrobial or antagonistic activity of probiotics is an important property that includes the production of antimicrobial compounds, competitive exclusion of pathogens, enhancement of the intestinal barrier function and others.Probiotics are viable lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that are believed to provide health benefits when administered in appropriate quantities.Lactobacillus is one of the most important genera of LAB that are known to produce substances including bacteriocins which can inhibit the growth of pathogenic bacteria.The current study determined the antibacterial activity of probiotic lactobacilli against some clinical bacterial isolates.A commercially available probiotic lactobacilli product which contains strains were tested for their antibacterial activity against the clinical bacterial isolates: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Staphylococcus aureus, following disk diffusion method.The cell-free supernatant of Lactobacilli strains isolated in the present study exhibited very remarkable and noticeable antimicrobial activity against pathogenic bacteria.