Abhinandan Patil¹, Rutuja J Patil², Priti S Bhosale³, Midhat F Desai³, Shradha S Mathpati⁴, Pratiksha S Teli⁵, Anjali S Mahadik⁶ and Firoj A Tamboli⁷*

¹Department of Pharmaceutics, D. Y. Patil Education Society, (Deemed to be University), Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India
²Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Anandi Pharmacy College, Kalambe Tarf Kale, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India
³UG Students, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Near Chitranagari, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India
⁴Department of Pharmacognosy, Ashokrao Mane College of Pharmacy, Peth-vadgaon, Kolhapur, India
⁵Department of Pharmacognosy, Krishna Foundations Jaywant Institute of Pharmacy, Wathar Karad, Maharashtra, India
⁶Department of Pharmaceutics, New College of Pharmacy, Uchgaon, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India
⁷Department of Pharmacognosy, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Near Chitra Nagari, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India

*Corresponding Author: Firoj A Tamboli, Department of Pharmacognosy, Bharati Vidyapeeth College of Pharmacy, Near Chitra Nagari, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India.

Received: April 13, 2026; Published: May 13, 2026

Abstract

Lactobacillus plantarum has become an important candidate probiotic with a high pharmaceutical and functional food prospect. This experiment was a systematic comparison of the in vitro growth dynamics, fermentation dynamics and strain-specific performance properties of various L. plantarum strains growing in de Man, Rogosa, and Sharpe (MRS) medium under controlled anaerobic environments. A total of five different L. plantarum strains (LP- 1, LP- 2, LP- 3, LP- 4 and LP- 5) were grown under 37oC with a 6 h interval. The monitoring of growth was done by optical density of 600 nm (OD 0) followed by viable bacterial counts (CFU/ mL), pH changes, and accumulation of organic acids. Findings showed that there were biphasic growth patterns and lag phases of between 2-4 hours with exponential phases of between 24-48 hours. The highest cell density of 8.5-9.2 x 10 9 CFU/mL was attained after 48 hours with all strains, with strain LP-3 showing a better biomass accumulation (0.4506 g/L). The rate of fermentation was 0.045-0.063 g/L/hour at the maximum fermentation and it was associated with a decrease in pH 6.5 to 3.8-4.1. The L14 strain of Lactobacillus plantarum showed the best specific growth rate (14 8 -1) and F22 strain was also shown to be very bile salt-tolerant (90.4 percent survival at pH 1.0 after 180 minutes) and antimicrobial against reference pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Enterococcus faecalis). Statistical analysis showed that the two strains differed significantly in growth kinetics (p < 0.05) and the pattern of substrate utilization indicated that each strain had some strain-specific nutrient metabolism preferences. These results provide detailed baseline kinetic parameters that can be used to scale L. plantarum fermentation processes and optimize the development of probiotic formulations to be used in clinical and commercial practice.

Keywords: Lactobacillus plantarum; Growth Kinetics; Fermentation; Probiotics; MRS Medium; In vitro Analysis

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Citation

Citation: Firoj A Tamboli., et al. “In Vitro Growth Kinetics and Fermentation Characteristics of Lactobacillus plantarum: A Comparative Analysis of Strain- Specific Performance in MRS Medium". Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 10.6 (2026): 01-05.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2026 Firoj A Tamboli., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.