previous studies, whereL. rhamnosus

previous studies, where
L. rhamnosus
and
L. paracasei
strains
exhibited high
in vitro
tolerance to bile salts. Moreover, our data
revealed high ability of the
L. rhamnosus
GG to tolerate both high
acidity and bile salts, in contrast to results reported by
Goldin
et al. (1992)
. Bile tolerance by probiotic has been revealed to
bedependentonbiletypeandonthestrain,withtolerance
levels of bile salts ranging from 0.125 to 2.0% (
Liong and Shah,
2005
). Among the 13 selected strains from Pecorino cheese,
which survived under the simulated
in vitro
static GI conditions,
results demonstrate that the low value of pH in the gastric
compartment has more in
fl
uence on the strains survival than the
presence of bile and pancreatic juice in duodenum compartment.
This
fi
ndings are in accordance to previous studies (
Succi et al.,
2005; Vinderola et al., 2009; Pitino et al., 2010; Solieri et al.,
2014
)andcon
fi
rmed that the resistance to low pH and bile
saltsisastrainspeci
fi
c trait (
Papamanoli et al., 2003; Pitino et al.,
2012
). In the human gut, food matrix certainly protect the bac-
teria from the deleterious effect of gastric and small intestinal
secretions (
Pitino et al., 2012
), improving the viability of micro-
organisms during gastric transit (
Huang and Adams, 2004; Pitino
et al., 2012
).