Probiotic potential of yeasts isolated from pineapple and their use in the elaboration of potentially functional fermented beverages

Pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merril) is a tropical fruit rich in nutrients characterized by a pleasant taste and widely consumed in several countries. It is used to produce juice, jams and wine. In this work, 150 yeasts isolates were obtained from peel (18) and spontaneously fermented pineapple pulp (132). The probiotic potential of 50 isolates was studied. Survival at pH 2.0, pepsin 3.0 g/L, and tolerance of bile salts (0.1 and 1% (w/v) were determined as indicators of survival potential of the isolates during the passage through the human gastrointestinal tract in simulated conditions. The selected isolates were also evaluated for their resistance to 6 antibiotics, antimicrobial activity against 6 pathogenic bacteria and autoaggregation and hydrophobicity properties. Five of them survived to gastrointestinal conditions, showed antibiotic resistance and autoaggregation properties. They were identified by MALDI-TOF MS and sequencing of ITS region as Candida lusitaniae (3) and Meyerozyma caribbica (2). Among these isolates, M. caribbica 9 D was evaluated in the production of a fermented pineapple beverage. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii was used as control, due to the fact that it is the only commercially available probiotic yeast. With M. caribbica inoculum, the beverage produced showed higher concentrations of residual glucose (24.19 g/L) and fructose (8.67 g/L), lower concentration of acetic acid (0.22 g/L); higher total phenolic compounds (196.93 mg/L), catechin (155.56 mg/L), chlorogenic acid (3.64 mg/L), vanillin (0.18 mg/L) and ferulic acid (33.2 mg/L). It was observed that M. caribbica population remained stable during refrigerated storage with cell counts greater than 7.00 log CFU/mL over 21 days. Compared to beverage produced with S. cerevisiae var. boulardii, the one produced with M. caribbica presented greater acceptance in the sensorial analysis for taste, aroma and general acceptance. The fermented pineapple beverage prepared with M. caribbica proved to be a good alternative in development of a potential probiotic beverage with different sensory and nutritional properties.