Background: The diversity of the human microbiome is positively associated with human health. However, this is endangered by Westernised dietary patterns that are characterised by a decreased food variety. This diversity might be improved by promoting dietary patterns rich in microbial species. Various collections of bacterial cultures resulting from a century of dairy research are readily available worldwide and could be exploited to contribute towards this end. To help to achieve this goal, we conducted a functional analysis of the metagenome of 24 strains, each representing one of the species available in the Liebefeld bacterial culture collection composed of 631 sequenced strains (Liebefeld collection) and compared the pathways potentially covered by this metagenome to the intestinal metagenome of four healthy humans. Results: A comparison of the annotated Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers, which classify chemical reactions catalysed by an enzyme, revealed that the pan-genome of the Liebefeld collection covers 91% of the human gut microbiome pathway functionality. After restricting the number of strains to 24, the pan-genome still covers 89% of gut microbiome functionality. Conclusions: Microbial culture collections derived from dairy research have the genomic potential to support human microbiome functionality. The ability of these strains to actively establish themselves in the human intestinal environment should therefore be investigated.
