Postbiotics: What exactly are they and what are their potential benefits?

Postbiotics’ use has shown great potential, and may represent a promising alternative to antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) within the animal production industry.

Gut homeostasis has been shown to be important for maintaining good animal health status. There is increasing evidence that gut microbiota plays a vital role in this function (Fan and Pedersen, 2021).

It is well established that probiotic additives can benefit the host, including specific strains of:

• Lactobacillus
• Bifidobacterium
• Akkermansia

The term probiotic, defined as:”Live microorganisms that, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit to the host” (FAO, 2001) has been widely accepted.

Probiotics improve host health by supporting a healthy digestive tract and immune system (Hill et al., 2014).

Since probiotics were defined as live microorganisms and probiotic products were widely applied, it was found that there were a large number of dead or injured microorganisms that still maintained an influence on host health (Fiore et al., 2020).

The beneficial effects of components and end products of non-viable microorganisms were also observed. Such as:

• bacterial lysates
• lactic acid
• short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs)
• bioactive peptides

Postbiotics bring a new inspiration for modulating gut health due to their advantages.

Postbiotics and the advantages of their use in animal production 

Throughout the years several different terms have been created and used for postbiotics. For example:

• “Tyndallized Probiotics” (Piqué et al. , 2019)
• “Probiotics killed by heat” (Li et al., 2009)
• “Para-probiotics” (Taverniti and Guglielmetti, 2011)
• “Bacterial lysates” (Jurkiewicz y Zielnik-Jurkiewicz, 2018).

The term “postbiotics” was first coined by Tsilingiri et al. , and suggests that they are metabolic products derived from probiotics, which exert beneficial effects on the host directly or indirectly (Tsilingiri et al., 2012).

In 2019, the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) proposed a definition for “postbiotics” as the “preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confer a benefit to the host’s health” (Swanson et al. , 2020).