Lallemand finetunes probiotic strain certification via biotech partnership

26 Jan 2021 --- Lallemand Health Solutions and the Natural Health Product Research Alliance (NHP RA) have concluded a long-term partnership to implement the Purity-IQ Certification Program. The move seeks to improve standardization for the authentication of probiotic strains.

Lallemand Health Solutions has developed strain-specific primers that have been integrated and validated by the NHP RA for the certification platform, which is called bKITS. 

They are to be used with the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) thermal cycler bCUBE for in-house identification of strains. 

“The Purity-IQ Certification Program provides partners and consumers with confidence in the authenticity of food and natural health products,” Marie-Eve Boyte, scientific affairs director at Lallemand Health Solutions, tells NutritionInsight.

“The Purity IQ logo is a mark of trust and conveys transparency for consumers that the product has been tested and the results confirm that probiotic strains mentioned on the product label are present and authentic in the product itself.”

Testing kit for probiotic strains
The bCUBE is manufactured and distributed by Hyris, a privately held, UK-based biotechnology company. It enables genetic testing of biological samples in any setting, at any time, with real-time access to results on the dedicated cloud-based software platform. 

bCUBE is a plug and play thermal cycler that can be purchased together with strain-specific bKITs for in-house strain identification. 

The Purity-IQ Certification Program seeks to improve standardization for the authentication of probiotic strains.The small laboratory apparel can be connected to a computer or linked to a mobile phone through a specially designed application. 

“Easy to use, the reagent is inserted in the cartridge with the sample to test. Results are received within two hours after pressing GO,” explains Paul Valder, cofounder and chief technical officer at Purity-IQ.

“Once bKITS have been developed specifically for all required strains and validated for use on the bCUBE, the standard requirement for manufacturers to comply with the Purity-IQ Certification Program shall be published for organizations seeking recognition,” he tells NutritionInsight.

“The portable bCUBE qPCR and ‘Cloud’ technology is currently being deployed with other similar applications on a global scale. We fully expect rapid adoption by many other organizations throughout the supply chain that wish to identify and verify the authenticity of  their probiotic brands.”

On pack probiotic certification?
The certification logo from the Purity-IQ Certification Program provides a means to communicate this added quality assurance to customers with a product label that can be displayed on the packaging. 

In an era where clean label and full transparency is highly valued, this is of the utmost interest for partners and consumers, the companies say. 

According to Boyte, the technology can identify any strain as long as one has the strain-specific primers for those strains.  

“Primers have been designed for all our strains and many have already been validated by the NHP Research Alliance. Primers are DNA probes with a specific sequence that will only detect the targeted probiotic strain. The bKITS contain the reagents, including fluorescent dyes and primers required to detect the strain.”

“For example, the user wants to confirm that a blend contains the strain Rosell-418. The user adds the sample (the tested blend) and the reagents from the bKIT for Rosell-418 in the cartridge, enters the cartridge in the bCUBE (the PCR machine), selects the analysis to run via the software (identification of strain Rosell-418) and presses ‘GO,’” she explains.

If the strain Rosell-418 is present in the blend, the primer will have recognized the strain and generated fluorescence detected by the bCUBE generating a positive result for the analysis, Boyte adds.

Previously, Lallemand’s probiotic blend, Lacidofil, was shown to reduce a predisposition to anxiety caused by early-life stress. Furthermore, the company partnered with Aspen Farmacêutica to bring the first psychobiotic for the gut-brain axis with approved health claims to the Brazilian market.

By Kristiana Lalou