Microbial growth on different oligosaccharide mixtures was
compared to that on glucose using the following growth index (GI):
GI ¼ (AS24 AS0) (AC24 AC0)/(AG24 AG0) (AC24 AC0). Here
the AS24, AG24 and AC24 represent the absorbance of an appropriate
medium either containing the sample oligosaccharide mixture (S)
or glucose (G), or lacking any carbohydrate (control, C) after incubation
for 24 h, respectively. While AS0, AG0 and AC0 stand for the
absorbance readings at 0 h