Bioactive Composition and Ex Vivo Cutaneous Effects of Lactiplantibacillus Plantarum T5-Derived Cell-Free Supernatants From Tarkhineh Publisher



Rezaee R ; Tajabadi Ebrahimi M ; Nasiri Kashani M ; Hesampour A
Source: Applied Food Biotechnology Published:2025

Abstract

Background and Objective: The skin microbiome preserves cutaneous health and barrier function and its dysbiosis contributes to diverse dermatological disorders. Although probiotics are widely investigated, the composition and cutaneous effects of strain-specific cell-free preparations from traditional fermented foods are poorly characterized. This study characterized selected fermentation components in cell-free supernatant derived from Lactiplantibacillus plantarum T5 (T5-CFS) isolated from Iranian traditional food and assessed its protective effects using ex vivo human skin model. Materials and Methods: Lactiplantibacillus plantarum T5 was cultured in reconstituted skim milk. The resulting cell-free supernatant was analysed using high-performance liquid chromatography to quantify organic and free amino acids and exopolysaccharides were assessed via the phenol-sulphuric acid method. Ex vivo human foreskin explants treated with various T5-CFS concentrations were assessed for viability and sodium lauryl sulphate-induced damages using 3-(4,5-di methyl thiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assays. Morphology was investigated using hematoxylin-eosin staining and barrier-associated gene expression was quantified using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Results and Conclusion: The T5-derived cell free supernatant contained lactic acid (2.44 mg/ml), acetic acid (0.97 mg/ml) and exopolysaccharide content (2705 mg/l). In an exploratory amino-acid screening, total free amino acids increased from 2340 to 13130 mg/l after fermentation. Under the ex vivo conditions, T5-derived CFS treatment preserved tissue viability, preserved epidermal morphology, decreased sodium lauryl sulphate-associated tissue damages and upregulated the mRNA expression of key barrier-associated genes, including ZO1, CLDN1 and FLG. The Lactiplantibacillus plantarum T5-derived CFS contained a complex fermentation-associated composition and was associated with preserved epidermal morphology and increased expression of barrier-associated transcripts in ex vivo human skin. Collectively, these findings indicate that the preparation contains a diverse pool of fermentation-derived components that may contribute to the observed barrier-associated responses; however, component-specific causality and functional barrier restoration were not established. These findings support further investigation of T5-derived CFS as a candidate preparation for future topical formulation development. © 2026 the authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. This open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 License (CC BY-NC 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/