Abstract
Bile salt hydrolase (BSH), a widely distributed function of the gut microbiota, has a profound impact on host lipid metabolism and energy harvest. Recent studies suggest that BSH inhibitors are promising alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) for enhanced animal growth performance and food safety. Using a high-purity BSH from Lactobacillus salivarius strain, we have identified a panel of BSH inhibitors. However, it is still unknown if these inhibitors also effectively inhibit the function of the BSH enzymes from other bacterial species with different sequence and substrate spectrum. In this study, we performed bioinformatics analysis and determined the inhibitory effect of identified BSH inhibitors on a BSH from L. acidophilus. Although the L. acidophilus BSH is phylogenetically distant from the L. salivarius BSH, sequence analysis and structure modeling indicated the two BSH enzymes contain conserved, catalytically important amino residues and domain. His-tagged recombinant BSH from L. acidophilus was further purified and used to determine inhibitory effect of specific compounds. Previously identified BSH inhibitors also exhibited potent inhibitory effects on the L. acidophilus BSH. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the BSH from L. salivarius is an ideal candidate for screening BSH inhibitors, the promising alternatives to AGP for enhanced feed efficiency, growth performance and profitability of food animals.