CHOLESTEROL ASSIMILATION BY COMMERCIAL YOGHURT STARTER CULTURES

The ability to in vitro cholesterol level reduction in laboratory media has been shown for numerous strains of lactic acid bacteria, but not for all strains of lactic bacteria used in the dairy industry. The aim of this work was the determination of the ability of selected thermophilic lactic acid bacteria to cholesterol assimilation during 24 h culture in MRS broth. Commercial starter cultures showed various ability to cholesterol assimilation from laboratory medium. In case of starter cultures used for production of traditional yoghurt, consisting of Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, the quantity of assimilated cholesterol did not exceed 27% of its initial contents (0.7 g in 1 dm(3)). Starter cultures used for bioyoghurt production, containing also probiotic strains (came from Lactobacillus acidophilus species or Bifidobacterium genus) assimilated from almost 18% to over 38% of cholesterol. For one monoculture of Lb. acidophilus, cholesterol assimilation ability of 49-55% was observed, despite that the number of bacterial cells in this culture was not different from number of bacteria in other cultures.