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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2002, p. 5452-5458, Vol. 68, No. 11
0099-2240/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/AEM.68.11.5452-5458.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Southeast Dairy Foods Research Center, Department of Food Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695,1 Department of Biological Resources and Technology, Yonsei University, Wonju 220-710, South Korea,2 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service and Department of Food Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-76243
Received 22 February 2002/ Accepted 25 June 2002
Six bacteriophages active against Leuconostoc fallax strains were isolated from industrial sauerkraut fermentation brines. These phages were characterized as to host range, morphology, structural proteins, and genome fingerprint. They were exclusively lytic against the species L. fallax and had different host ranges among the strains of this species tested. Morphologically, three of the phages were assigned to the family Siphoviridae, and the three others were assigned to the family Myoviridae. Major capsid proteins detected by electrophoresis were distinct for each of the two morphotypes. Restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA fingerprinting showed that all six phages were genetically distinct. These results revealed for the first time the existence of bacteriophages that are active against L. fallax and confirmed the presence and diversity of bacteriophages in a sauerkraut fermentation. Since a variety of L. fallax strains have been shown to be present in sauerkraut fermentation, bacteriophages active against L. fallax are likely to contribute to the microbial ecology of sauerkraut fermentation and could be responsible for some of the variability observed in this type of fermentation.
Paper no. FSR02-5 of the Journal Series of the Department of Food Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
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