Characterization of bacteriocinogenic strains of lactic acid bacteria from traditional Slovenian cheese ‘Tolminc’

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to examine traditional Slovenian ‘Tolminc’ cheese for the presence of lactic acid bacteria that produce several bacteriocins. The presence of gene determinants for different bacteriocins in this type of cheese and in the cultivable population of ‘Tolminc’ microbiota, have already been demonstrated, as well as its antimicrobial activity. Due to the difficulties in connecting the presence of gene determinants for bacteriocins with the observed antimicrobial activity it was decided to examine in this study the same features on the level of individual bacteriocinogenic strains. Like in previous results, enterococci and their bacteriocins prevailed in cheese microbial consortia. None of isolated strains inhibited growth of Staphylococcus aureus, while the other indicator strains were inhibited in a strain specific manner. Most of isolated strains carried gene determinants for cytolysin. On the basis of gene determinants for bacteriocins, antimicrobial activity, phenotyping by PhP (PhenePlateTM) system and PCR identification, some similarities found were among Enterococcus isolates.

Keywords

• traditional cheese
• bacteriocin genes
• bacteriocins
• enterocins
• enterococci
• antimicrobial activity