About the Authors

Hiroyuki Kubota

hiroyuki.kubota@yher.be

Affiliations Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESV, Gent-Zwijnaarde, Belgium, Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Takafumi Sakai

Affiliation Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Agata Gawad

Affiliation Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESV, Gent-Zwijnaarde, Belgium

Hiroshi Makino

Affiliation Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Takuya Akiyama

Affiliations Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESV, Gent-Zwijnaarde, Belgium, Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Eiji Ishikawa

Affiliation Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Kenji Oishi

Affiliations Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESV, Gent-Zwijnaarde, Belgium, Yakult Central Institute, Tokyo, Japan

Competing Interests

HK, AG, TA and KO are paid employees of Yakult Honsha European Research Center for Microbiology ESV. TS, HM, and EI were the paid employees at the time of this study. This does not alter the authors' adherence to the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: HK TS HM EI KO. Performed the experiments: HK TS AG HM TA. Analyzed the data: HK HM KO. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: HK TS AG HM TA KO. Wrote the paper: HK TS AG HM TA EI KO.