Food biopreservation: Promising strategies using bacteriocins, bacteriophages and endolysins

The interest in biopreservation of food has prompted the quest for new natural antimicrobial compounds from different origins. Bacteriocins have been widely recognized as natural food biopreservatives but lastest advances on bateriocin biology have opened new fields to explore. On the contrary, the use of bacteriophages and endolysins has only been considered in the last five years and recent developments have produced promising perspectives. This review provides an overview of the current and foreseen applications of bacteriocins, bacteriophages and phage-encoded endolysins along the food chain and highlights research topics to be addressed in the future. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.The DairySafe group at IPLA-CSIC is financially supported by grants from the Spanish Government BIO2007-65061 and AGL2009-13144-C02-01 and the regional research program FICYTIB08-052.Peer Reviewe