Molecular characterisation of Lactobacillus curvatus and L. sake isolated from sauerkraut and their application in sausage fermentations

Abstract

Lactobacillus curvatus and L. sake are the organisms most adapted to meat fermentations and dominate the flora during the whole process. In fermenting sauerkraut Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides is the major organism only during the early phase. In this environment L. curvatus and L. sake provide up to 50% of the microbial flora especially of the later phase, depending on the process conditions. Strains of L. curvatus and L. sake isolated from fermenting sauerkraut were identified by hybridization with species specific 23S rRNA-targeted oligonucleotide probes and further characterized. In 59 of 72 strains plasmid DNA was detected. Small cryptic plasmids of 20 strains were found to be homologous to pLc2, a 2.6 kb plasmid from L. curvatus LTH683, which was originally isolated from meat. The ability to compete was investigated in fermenting sausages of two strains each of L. curvatus and L. sake isolated from sauerkraut. One strain each of L. curvatus and L. sake was found to outnumber the meatborne flora and govern the processSIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: D.Dt.F. QN1(1,53) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman