Screening of lactobacilli derived from chicken feces and partial characterization of Lactobacillus acidophilus A12 as animal probiotics

This study was performed to screen and select Lactobacillus strains from chicken feces for probiotic use in animals. Of these strains, strain A12 had the highest immunostimulatory effect. Therefore, strain A12 was characterized as a potential probiotic. Strain A12 was tentatively identified as Lactobacillus acidophilus A12, using the API 50 CHL kit based on a 99.9% homology. L. acidophilus A12 was highly resistant to artificial gastric juice (pH 2.5) and bile acid (oxgall). Based on results from the API ZYM kit, leucine arylamidase, crystine arylamidase, acid phosphatase, naphthol-AS-BI-phosphohydrolase, α-galactosidase, β-galactosidase, α-glucosidase, β-glucosidase, and N-acetyl-β-glucosamidase were produced by strain A12. L. acidophilus A12 showed resistance to several antibiotics (nisin, gentamicin, and erythromycin). The amount of interleukin (IL)-1α in 20x concentrated supernatant from L. acidophilus A12 was approximately 156 pg/ml. With regard to antioxidant activity, L. acidophilus A12 supernatant showed 60.6% DPPH radical scavenging activity. These results demonstrate the potential use of L. acidophilus A12 as health-promoting probiotics.