Probiotic Properties of Lactobacillus Plantarum LRCC5193, a Plant‐Origin Lactic Acid Bacterium Isolated from Kimchi and Its Use in Chocolates

This study involves an investigation of the probiotic properties of lactic acid bacteria isolated from Kimchi, and their potential applications in chocolate. Lactobacillus plantarum—LRCC5193 (LP‐LRCC5193) demonstrated a significantly higher degree of heat, acid, and bile acid tolerance compared to other Kimchi isolates. The intestinal adhesion assay also revealed that 84.2 log percentage of LP‐LRCC5193 adhered to the Caco‐2 cells after 2 h of incubation. Furthermore, the lyophilized LP‐LRCC5193 maintained 92.9 log percentage and 97.2 log percentage survival rate within artificial stomach juice (pH 2.5, pepsin 0.04%) and artificial intestinal juice (oxgall 0.5%, trypsin 0.04%, and pancreatin 0.04%), respectively. Meanwhile, we also found that lyophilized LP‐LRCC5193 incorporated in chocolate exhibited significantly higher survivability than lyophilized LP‐LRCC5193 in both artificial gastric and intestinal juice under 1 to 3 hr incubation, where the survivability was within the range of 96.3 to 98.5 log percentage, and 98.8 to 98.9 log percentage, respectively. A 6‐month storage test further revealed that LP‐LRCC5193 demonstrated higher stability than the lyophilized LP‐LRCC5103 in 3 different temperature ranges, where the final survival rates were 97.2 log percentage (20 °C), 89.2 log percentage (33 °C), and 94.4 log percentage (15 to 30 °C/wk). Altogether, our data suggest that chocolate can be used as a tasty delivery vehicle for delivering putative probiotic strain, LP‐LRCC5193 to the gastrointestinal tract. Practical Application Lactobacillus plantarum LRCC5193 (LP‐LRCC5193) isolated from Kimchi demonstrated high stability under gastrointestinal environmental stresses and good adhesion to the intestinal epithelial cells in vitro. In addition, LP‐LRCC5193 containing chocolates remained highly stable after storage at room temperature for 6 months. Chocolate containing LP‐LRCC5193 can thus be considered a promising probiotic delivery system.