Fig. 1

Survival of Lactobacillus spp. strains before () and during exposure to in vitro simulated gastric conditions for 120 min (, pH 2.5) and enteric conditions for 360 min (, pH 8). Different capital letters denote significant differences (P ≤ 0.05) among strains during the same sampling period of the in vitro assay. Different lower case letters denote significant differences (P  ≤0.05) among sampling periods for the same strain in the in vitro assay. The results are expressed as the mean ± SD. n = 3