Microorganisms in Functional Foods: 2nd Edition
A special issue of Microorganisms (ISSN 2076-2607). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Microbiology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2025 | Viewed by 9
Special Issue Editor
Interests: fermentation; microbiology; bacteriology; starter cultures; probiotics; food microbiology; food spoilage
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue is a continuation of our 2024 edition, “Microorganisms in Functional Foods”.
Research into functional foods has recently gained momentum in response to the changing health status in industrialized countries. Functional microorganisms and health benefits represent a binomial with great potential for fermented functional foods. The health benefits of fermented functional foods are expressed either directly through the interactions of ingested live microorganisms with the host (a probiotic effect) or indirectly through the uptake of microbial metabolites synthesized during fermentation (a biogenic effect). In addition to their nutritional profile, functional food can contribute to a healthy immune system, but only in effective amounts that produce a biologically active effect. Lactic-acid-producing bacteria, which are thought to have beneficial properties such as improved lactose digestion and resistance to pathogens, are common probiotics. Prebiotics are non-digestible food components (e.g., oligosaccharides) that are selectively fermented in the large intestine. They can induce genus-level changes and do not have issues with survivability, unlike probiotics. Additionally, both prebiotics and probiotics can be used in combination (as synbiotics). Future perspectives that more comprehensively describe gut biodiversity and enable the close monitoring of changes in response to diets will help determine the role of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics in health promotion.
This Special Issue aims to provide a collection of articles that showcase current research on “Microorganisms in Functional Foods". As Guest Editors of this Special Issue, we would like to invite you to submit research articles, review articles, and short communications related to this topic.
Dr. Jadranka Frece
Guest Editor
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. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2700 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.
Keywords
- functional food
- probiotics
- prebiotics
- fermentation
- food microbiology
- health promotion
- gut diversity
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