0000000000530883
AUTHOR
Salvatore Massa
PFGE: importance in food quality.
In late 19 century, great interest has arisen for food quality. This is referred as absence of pathogens in food (safety for consumers) and as nutritional quality of food (organoleptic characteristics). Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) is, among the molecular techniques developed in the last years, one of the most reliable, discriminative and reproducible technique. It can be used in clinical field for the identification of pathogens and the origin of outbreaks, and in food microbiology for the identification of pathogens (food borne disease surveillance) or of microorganisms responsible for the organoleptic characteristics of food. The present article shows some useful patents relat…
Genotypic characterization of lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional Pecorino Siciliano cheese
A total of 468 lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolates from the interior of six traditional Pecorino Siciliano cheeses during ripening (1, 30 and 90 days) were characterized genotypically in order to assess the biodiversity within this wild microbial population. Two DNA-based technique, PCR and PFGE were used for genetic typing of isolates. Of the 468 isolates, species-specific PCR analysis showed that 79, 58, 2, 9 and 4 isolates reacted with primers for Lactobacillus paracasei, Lb. plantarum, Lb. pentosus, Lb. rhamnosus and Lb. curvatus, respectively and no isolates reacted with the Lb. casei primers. Genus-specific PCR analysis showed that 59 isolates reacted positively with the lactococcal p…
Preliminary characterization of wine lactobacilli able to degrade arginine
Lactobacillus strains able to degrade arginine were isolated and characterized from a typical red wine. All the strains were gram-positive, catalase-negative and produced both D- and L-lactate from glucose. Strains L2, L3, L4, and L6 were able to produce CO2 from glucose; however, production of CO2 from glucose was not observed in strains L1 and L5, suggesting that they belong to the homofermentative wine lactic acid bacteria (LAB) group. All of the lactobacilli were tested for their ability to ferment 49 carbohydrates. The sugar fermentation profile of strain L1 was unique, suggesting that this strain belonged to Lactococcus lactis ssp. cremoris, a non-typical wine LAB. Furthermore, a prel…