Intensification of the Prebiotic Production Process

Dear Colleagues,

The daily consumption of prebiotics has been associated with the prevention and treatment of many diseases related to the gastrointestinal tract, mental health, bone and cardiometabolism. Prebiotics are defined as "a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit". Recognized prebiotics remain mostly limited to nondigestible oligosaccharides, such as fructo-oligosaccharides, inulin, galacto-oligosaccharides and lactulose, although other noncarbohydrates, such as polyphenols, appear as potential prebiotics. Other emergent candidates are isomalto-oligosaccharides, xylo-oligosaccharides, malto-oligosaccharides, among others. Prebiotics are mainly produced by direct extraction from plants, hydrolysed by natural polysaccharides and enzymatic synthesis.

With the increasing demand by functional food and the emergence of such a wide range of new prebiotic candidates, it is now of huge interest to develop successful bioprocesses for their production at high content, high purity, and at industrial scale. This Special Issue aims to gather original research articles and reviews, on topics related with:

• New bioprocesses for prebiotics production at high content;
• New approaches to increase purity of produced prebiotics;
• Prebiotics production from agro-industrial wastes;
• Engineered enzymes to produce prebiotics;
• Prebiotics production at industrial scale;
• Novel microorganisms able to produce prebiotics;
• Synthesis of novel prebiotics. 

Dr. Clarisse Salomé Nobre Gonçalves
Prof. Dr. José António Teixeira
Prof. Dr. Cristóbal Noé Aguilar González
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Foods is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.