Good adhesion properties of probiotics: a potential risk for bacteremia?

The ability to adhere to human intestinal mucus was tested for lactic acid bacteria of clinical blood culture, human fecal and dairy origin. The blood culture isolates were found to adhere better than the dairy strains. Of th e Lactobacillus rhamnosus strains (nine clinical, 10 fecal and three dairy) , blood culture isolates adhered better than the fecal strains. Although th ese results indicate a trend for blood culture isolates to bind to intestin al mucus in higher numbers than strains of dairy and human fecal origin, ot her factors are also likely to be involved in the etiology of lactobacillem ia since some of the clinical Lactobacillus isolates exhibited a relatively low level of adhesion. (C) 2001 Federation of European Microbiological Soc ieties. Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.