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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Imen Nouioui
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2021 Aurum Switzerland AG. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.Over the last few decades, a wealth of evidence has formed the basis for “the Old Friends hypothesis” suggesting that, in contrast to the past, increasingly people are living in environments with limited and less diverse microbial exposure, with potential consequences for their health. Hence, including safe live or heat-killed microbes in the diet may be beneficial in promoting and maintaining human health. In order to assess the safety of microbes beyond the current use of standardized cultures and probiotic supplements, new approaches are being developed. Here, we present evidence for the safety of heat-killed Mycolicibacterium aurum Aogashima as a novel food, utilizing the decision tree approach developed by Pariza and colleagues (2015). We provide evidence that the genome of M. aurum Aogashima is free of (1) genetic elements associated with pathogenicity or toxigenicity, (2) transferable antibiotic resistance gene DNA, and (3) genes coding for antibiotics used in human or veterinary medicine. Moreover, a 90-day oral toxicity study in rats showed that (4) the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) was the highest concentration tested, namely 2000 μg/kg BW/day. We conclude that oral consumption of heat-killed M. aurum Aogashima is safe and warrants further evaluation as a novel food ingredient.
Author(s): Nouioui I, Dye T
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Food Science and Nutrition
Year: 2021
Volume: 9
Issue: 9
Pages: 4839-4854
Print publication date: 15/09/2021
Online publication date: 21/07/2021
Acceptance date: 29/05/2021
Date deposited: 10/08/2021
ISSN (electronic): 2048-7177
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.2413
DOI: 10.1002/fsn3.2413
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