Exploration and Insights of Potential Probiotics of Donkey Milk from a Rural Indian Village

Non-bovine milk is gaining more international acceptance for research and commercialization due to its usefulness as bovine milk is now reported as hypersensitive to infant’s serum due to the high concentration of the casein protein, which may act as potent allergen. The nutritious components of donkey milk are comparable to human milk, i.e., high lysozyme concentration, etc. Many potential probiotics species are identified. In addition to the high lysozymal content, the well-adapted potential probiotics of donkey milk are identified and also categorized on the basis of their relative abundance, and include Lactobacillus paracasei, Lactococcus lactis, and Carnobacterium maltaromaticum. Recently, it was reported that the Lactobacillus paracasei and Lactococcus lactis speciesare more abundant while the Leuconostoc, Enterococcus, and Streptococcus are the least. These probiotic strains exhibit greater antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-proliferative properties in vitro conditions. The present study highlighted the basic composition of donkey milk as well as isolating bacteria and their potential probiotic characteristics against stress conditions like low pH, high bile, etc., and it was found that Lactobacillus paracasei and Enterococcus faecalis species were predominant in raw donkey milk samples collected from farm sites, while in local field samples, the Lactococcus lactis and Lysinibacillus sphaericus species were dominant. Thus, in the future, donkey milk probiotics can be an interesting research area and can also provide a novel source for fermented food products with highly efficient probiotics.