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We searched for sugar sources which agree with the selectivity and efficiency of growth of bifidobacteria. Among the sugars tested, raffinose, stachyose, inulin oligomers (4- to 25-saccharides) and dextran oligomers (3- to 5-saccharides) were found to be used by Bifidobacterium infantis and not by Escherichia coli, Streptococcus faecalis nor Lactobacillus acidophilus. Raffinose, stachyose and inulin oligomers (4- to 25-saccharides) showed almost equal growth activities to B. infantis, and the generation time using each sugar was about 1.0 hr as short as with use of lactose. Raffinose showed a high rate of consumption by B. infantis or B. adolescentis without dependence on the preculture sugar. However, consumption of stachyose, inulin oligomer and inulin was dependent on the preculture sugar. These results indicate that raffinose is the most suitable sugar source for bifidobacteria among the sugars tested, therefore we administered raffinose to conventional mice along with food and found that B. infantis was predominantly implanted (more than 1010.5 viable cells/g feces) in five mice in ten.
Yazawa et al. (1982) studied this question.