Probiotic products are composed of living microorganisms that, when present in the right quantity, have beneficial effects on the host. One of the parameters for the quality of probiotic products during their production is the amount of beneficial probiotic bacteria present in them. Microbiological testing of probiotic product quality is based on traditional methods that measure the growth of microorganisms in liquid and solid culture media. Traditional methods are often unreliable, have long incubation times, and provide poor differentiation between microorganisms. Plate counting method is one of the microbiological techniques used to determine the number of bacteria in a probiotic product. Novel microbiological tests are based on the use of more accurate and reliable molecular methods. One possible method for determining specific probiotic bacteria is digital PCR. It allows the determination of the absolute number of bacteria in a sample of a probiotic product based on fluorescence. We have optimized the technique to the point where we can determine the total amount of probiotic bacteria in a probiotic product. The method is a potential tool for determining the number of probiotic bacteria in probiotic products but needs to be optimized for general use so that it can distinguish between live and dead probiotic bacteria.
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