Highlights
• Fermentation substrates of rice with different MDs (0s, 5s and 60s) were prepared and fermented with human feces.
• MD 5s showed higher starch utilization, compared with MD 0s and MD 60s evaluated by FT-IR and CLSM.
• 16S rDNA sequencing showed that MD 5s exhibited higher α-diversity than MD 0s and MD 60s.
• Specific bacteria in MD 5s were also positively correlated with the SCFAs production via Spearman correlation analysis.
• In vitro culture assay revealed that fermentation substrates of MD 0s and 5s promoted the growth of two probiotics - A. muciniphila and B. adolescentis.