Abstract

Excessive acute alcohol intake can overload hepatic ethanol metabolic pathways, inducing oxidative stress responses, lipid metabolism disorders, and hepatocyte apoptotic cascades. Current clinical interventions are mostly symptomatic supportive care, and there remains a lack of effective strategies to directly convert ethanol into non-toxic metabolites in the digestive tract. In this study, Heyndrickxia (H.) coagulans JF1 was isolated from samples of chicken intestinal contents, and its ethanol-degrading capacity and probiotic functional characteristics were systematically evaluated. Notably, H. coagulans JF1 exhibited excellent ethanol-degrading capacity, ethanol tolerance, and gastrointestinal environment tolerance. This strain showed good adhesion to Caco-2 cells, along with remarkable hydrophobicity, auto-aggregation, and co-aggregation abilities. Antioxidant activity assays demonstrated that JF1 possesses strong scavenging capacity against various free radicals, with cell lysates displaying higher antioxidant levels. Antibacterial activity tests indicated that JF1 can inhibit five species of foodborne pathogens, is susceptible to ten antibiotics, and exhibits no hemolytic activity. In cellular experiments, intervention with JF1 regulated the expression of genes related to oxidative stress, lipid metabolism, immunity, autophagy, and apoptosis in ethanol-induced HepG2 cells. Whole-genome sequencing of JF1 revealed its genetic composition and relevant metabolic pathways, providing a genetic basis for its functional characteristics. Through multi-dimensional phenotypic analysis and genomic characterization, this study offers important theoretical and experimental support for the development of H. coagulans JF1 as a functional probiotic that promotes ethanol metabolism in the body.