Bacteriocin-producing bacteria present in commercial foodstuffs

In this study, researchers at Bannari Amman Institute of Technology in India investigated the prevalence of bacteriocin-producing, food spoilage- and bovine mastitis-causing bacteria in commercial foodstuff. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Green Pharmacy.

• A total of 389 commercial food samples were selected for the study, including meat products, fish products, milk and dairy products, raw vegetables, bakery products, beverages and fermented rice products.
• These samples were obtained from randomly selected local retail shops and supermarkets in the Salem, Erode, Tirupur, Namakkal and Coimbatore districts of Tamil Nadu.
• The food samples were serially diluted prior to inoculation on various enrichment broth and selective media. These were then incubated aerobically and anaerobically.
• The researchers performed streaking and re-streaking on various selective agar media until pure bacterial cultures developed.
• They subjected the bacteria to morphological examination and biochemical tests for identification.
• The researchers confirmed the presence of 688 bacteria in various commercial food products, comprising of:
  • Escherichia coli (86, 22.1 percent)
  • Listeria (82, 21.1 percent)
  • Aeromonas sp. (72, 18.5 percent)
  • Clostridium sp. (70, 17.9 percent)
  • Staphylococcus sp. (64, 16.5 percent)
  • Lactobacillus sp. (62, 15.9 percent)
  • Streptococcus sp. (54, 13.9 percent)
  • Bacillus sp. (53, 13.6 percent)
  • Enterobacter sp. (43, 11.1 percent)
  • Salmonella enterica (39, 10 percent)
  • Klebsiella sp. (33, 8.5 percent)
  • Enterococcus sp. (30, 7.7 percent)
• Bacteriocin isolated from some Lactobacillus sp. showed good antibacterial activity against food spoilage- and bovine mastitis-causing bacteria.

Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that Lactobacillus sp. can be of use in the food industry because of their ability to produce antimicrobial peptides like bacteriocin. Bacteriocin could be used as a biopreservative as well as a natural agent for controlling many disease-causing pathogens.

Read the full study at this link.

Journal Reference:

Das A, Naveen S, Bindhu J, Hemanth S, Raj CS, Ayisha Safana TK. PREVALENCE OF BACTERIOCIN-PRODUCING LACTOBACILLUS, FOOD SPOILAGE, AND BOVINE MASTITIS-CAUSING BACTERIA IN COMMERCIAL FOODSTUFFS. International Journal of Green Pharmacy. 2019;13(3):193-206. DOI: 10.22377/ijgp.v13i3.2589