REVIEW PAPER
Research area: One-Health | Probiotics | Lactic Acid Bacteria
From “GRAS to Grass”: Lactic Acid Bacteria as One Health Probiotics for Plant Growth, Bioremediation, Soil Quality, Food Safety, and Public Health
Tanjilur Rahman1, Golam Mostofa1, Tanim Jabid Hossain1.2*
1 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chittagong, Chattogram, Bangladesh
2 Laboratory for Health, Omics and Pathway Exploration (HOPE Lab), Chattogram, Bangladesh
*Corresponding author: Tanim Jabid Hossain, Email: tanim.bmb@gmail.com
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are versatile Gram-positive microbes with a long record of safe use in food and therapeutics. This review advances the concept of LAB as multi-kingdom probiotics within a unified One Health framework, spanning plant growth promotion (PGPR), soil resilience, bioremediation, food safety, and human health. Many LAB strains hold GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) or QPS (Qualified Presumption of Safety) status and have been used for centuries in food fermentation to enhance sensory and nutritional quality, shelf life, and microbial safety. Selected LAB are also used as probiotic supplements to support digestion, immune function, and metabolism. Beyond these traditional roles, emerging studies indicate that LAB can (1) enhance nutrient availability and produce phytohormones that support plant growth, (2) suppress phytopathogens, (3) improve soil function, and (4) contribute to environmental remediation via biosorption of heavy metals, transformation of organic pollutants, and adsorption of microplastics. Based on this synthesis of mechanistic and ecological evidence, we propose a conceptual shift: redefining LAB as multi-host, cross-domain One Health agents that bridge established food-safety credentials (GRAS) to applications in plant, soil and environmental stewardship (grass). Realizing this potential will require coordinated interdisciplinary research - standardized field trials, mechanistic omics, safety profiling, and clear regulatory pathways - to translate LAB innovations into sustainable solutions for food security, environmental quality, and public health.
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), one health, universal probiotic, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), bioremediation, food safety, soil quality, public health.
• Lactic acid bacteria act as multi-host, cross-domain agents within One Health systems
• LAB link soil, plant, food, and gut health through a connected biological continuum
• Beyond fermentation, LAB support plant growth, soil quality, and bioremediation
• LAB metabolites enhance food safety, shelf life, and nutritional bioaccessibility
• An integrated One Health framework is proposed to guide future LAB research
