Journal of Applied Microbiology ISSN 1364-5072 ORIGINAL ARTICLE The safety of Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus indicus as food probiotics H.A. Hong1, J.-M. Huang1, R. Khaneja1, L.V. Hiep2, M.C. Urdaci3 and S.M. Cutting1 1 School of Biological Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey, UK 2 National Institute of Vaccines and Biological Substances, Nha Trang, Vietnam 3 Laboratoire de Microbiologie, UMR5248 CNRS-Universite´ de Bordeaux-ENITA, Gradignan, France Keywords Abstract Bacillus subtilis, probiotics, safety, spore formers, toxicity. Aims: To conduct in vitro and in vivo assessments of the safety of two species of Bacillus, one of which, Bacillus subtilis, is in current use as a food supple- Correspondence ment. Simon M. Cutting, School of Biological Methods and Results: Cultured cell lines, Caco-2, HEp-2 and the mucus-pro- Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of ducing HT29-16E cell line, were used to evaluate adhesion, invasion and cyto- London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK. toxicity. The Natto strain of B. subtilis was shown to be able to invade and lyse E-mail:
[email protected] cells. Neither species was able to adhere significantly to any cell line. The Natto 2007 ⁄ 1919: received 27 November 2007, strain was also shown to form biofilms. No strain produced any of the known revised 24 December 2007 and accepted 16 Bacillus enterotoxins. Disc-diffusion assays using a panel of antibiotics listed by January 2008 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) showed that only Bacillus indicus carried resistance to clindamycin at a level above the minimum inhibitory con- doi:10.1111/j.1365-2672.2008.03773.x centration breakpoints set by the EFSA.