Novel Grass-Derived Prebiotic

About

The team at IBERS have developed a manufacturing process for the extraction and purification of short-length-branched fructans with prebiotic activity from high-sugar grasses. Fructan production from grasses provides a highly abundant source material which can be harvested multiple times over the growing season. Studies using an artificial gut system demonstrated that the grass derived short-length-branched fructans have a higher Prebiotic Index than longer chain molecules and commercially sourced inulin preparations. Further investigation demonstrated consistent and reproducible fructan chain length product profile regardless of when in the season the grass was harvested. The technology has been developed with over £400,000 of funding from the British Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and commercial sources. Extensive microbiological testing has demonstrated the strong prebiotic effect of the materials in boosting the growth and viability of a wide range of bacteria species commonly used as probiotics in human and animal health. In more detail, positive growth was observed for Lactobacillus plantarum, Bacillus amyloquifaciens, B. subtilis, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactococcus lactis cremorium, and Lactococcus lactis 7000716. The isolation of fructan from grass juice offers additional advantages as it generates valuable co-products (e.g. proteins, grass fibre for animal feed, and lipids) that can greatly improve the overall economics of the process. Studies showed that lambs fed with the resulting grass fibre had similar ingestion rates, weight gain, size and musculature as animals fed with full grass. Sufficient scale-up has been achieved with reproducible production now being possible using 100s kg of feedstock. Work is underway to further optimise the method, increase scale up, and analyse the economics of production. Finally, the team is working on in vivo studies starting with mice. Aberystwyth have filed a priority patent application (WO2015075440A1). The core IP held by the University relates to the isolation and generation of branched-chain fructans from grasses, a manufacturing process for the extraction, enrichment and purification of the active fructans from grasses, and their use as prebiotics. There are no directly competing groups or companies who are focusing on the use of grass as a feedstock for prebiotic production. Indirect competition comes from existing chicory-based prebiotic manufacturers.