In Vitro Digestibility and Ruminal Fermentation Profile

Dear Colleagues,

Food ingredients plays a crucial role in human health, and health-promoting effects of food ingredients are highly related to their digestion and fermentation characteristics in gastrointestinal tract. A growing amount of evidence suggests that the gut microbiota may serve as an important modulator of the crosstalk between diet and human health. Recently and more strikingly, some reports have demonstrated that some food ingredients, such as polysaccharides and polyphenols, can evade the digestive system without digestion by human enzymes in the saliva, stomach and small intestine. The indigestible food ingredients can then reach the large intestine intact, where they can be broken down and utilized by gut microbiota. As a result, some health-promoting gut microbiota levels, such as of Akkermansia muciniphila, are increased; furthermore, some beneficial metabolic products such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the area also are enhanced, which may positively contribute to human health. Thus, evaluating digestion and fermentation characteristics of food ingredients has been highly important.

It is well-known that it has been difficult to detect the changes of food ingredients if an animal model was used to evaluate the digestion and fermentation characteristics of food ingredients due to the complex composition of the animal diet. However, the digestion and fermentation model in vitro have the advantages of reproducibility, simplicity, universality, and can integrally simulate the in vivo conditions to mimic oral, gastric, small intestinal and large intestinal digestive processes. Thus, the in vitro gastrointestinal digestion and fermentation models have been widely used for evaluating activities of food ingredients.

Thus, this Special Issue of Fermentation focuses on the in vitro digestibility and ruminal fermentation profile of food ingredients, and it is expected that this publication could substantially expand our knowledge of digestion and fermentation characteristics of food ingredients and further stimulate future research. Accordingly, this Special Issue, welcomes experts working in the field to submit original experimental studies and reviews that cover state-of-the-art advances in this important area.

This Special Issue will highlight the most recent advances in, but is not limited to, the following subjects:

• Changes in physicochemical and biological properties during gastrointestinal digestion and fermentation;
• Innovative approaches to evaluating the digestion and fermentation characteristics of food ingredients;
• Metabolic characteristics and biotransformation of food ingredients during gastrointestinal digestion and fermentation system;
• The interaction between gut microbiota and food ingredients;
• The potential risk of food ingredients on the human health evaluated using digestion and fermentation model in vitro.

Prof. Dr. Guijie Chen
Dr. Zhuqing Dai
Prof. Dr. Chunxu Chen
Guest Editors

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