Methods: One hundred and fifty nine strains of lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional
Taiwan fermented mustard were evaluated for their immunopotentiating activity on a murine
macrophage cell line RAW 264.7.
Results: Of the strains, pronounced increases in the levels of nitric oxide (NO), tumor necrosis
factor-α and interleukin-6 were observed in strains B0040, B0110 and B0145. Among them,
strain B0145 had the highest NO and tumor necrosis factor-α generation in RAW 264.7 cells;
strains B0040 and B0110 were also superior to that of Lactobacillus casei. These results
demonstrated that NO and cytokines were effectively induced when the bacterial stimulants
were treated with macrophages. In addition, strains B0040 and B0110 were identified as
Lactobacillus plantarum, and B0145 as Weissella cibaria using 16S rDNA analysis.
Conclusions: The results implicated selected strains may be regarded as a biological response
modifier and had a broad application prospects in exploiting new functional food or as a feed
additive