Ozturk is an assistant professor of food science at UW–Madison who specializes in dairy food science. Her position is funded entirely by the Dairy Innovation Hub.
Postdoc (pictured above): Sonali Mohapatra is a postdoctoral research associate in the Ozturk lab in the Department of Food Science at UW–Madison. She has a decade of experience in fermentation technology and product development, focusing on leveraging agricultural and dairy waste streams to create value-added prebiotic products.
Probiotics are commonly used as a prophylactic treatment of various gut disorders. However, gastrointestinal survival of probiotics is highly variable among individuals. Approaches to boost and optimize intestinal survival are therefore much welcomed and could even boost probiotic efficacy in the clinic. Whey protein phospholipid concentrate (WPPC) is an underutilized dairy stream, harboring glycoproteins that could be used to promote intestinal survival of probiotics. WPPC-derived glycoproteins possess glycan sites that can specifically bind to probiotics surface receptors, thereby improving their viability and their attachment to epithelial cells, which is corroborated by our exciting preliminary data. In this study, we will use Limosilactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri)
as our probiotic test species. Select strains bind intestinal mucins and are established probiotics based on their ability to modulate the immune system, to increase the intestinal barrier function, and to have antimicrobial activity against notorious pathogens. We hypothesize that the formation of WPPC-L. reuteri complexes improves survival in both the food matrix and in the gastrointestinal tract. To test our hypothesis, we will pursue the following aims: 1) to increase the purity of WPPC glycoproteins to promote the formation of WPPC-L. reuteri complexes; 2) to determine the binding efficacy of glycoproteins to complex with L. reuteri strains and to establish the extent by which probiotic survival in yogurt is impacted; 3) to determine gastrointestinal survival of the probiotic
complexed ± WPPC. The expected outcome of our research is that its successful completion will have delivered a next-generation dairy food by leveraging underutilized materials in the dairy stream, which will improve WPPC marketability and increase profits for dairy farmers and processors. Jan-Peter van Pijkeren is collaborating on this work.