Title

Development andcharacterization of lactose-positive Pediococcus species for milk fermentation

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Volume

62

Issue

3

Publisher

American Society of Microbiology

Publication Date

1996

First Page

936

Last Page

941

Abstract

Bacteriophagesagainst Streptococcusthermophilus areagrowingproblemintheItaliancheeseindustry.One possiblecontrolmethodinvolvesreplacing S.thermophilus inmozzarellastarterblendswithlacticacidbacteria from a different genus or species. In this study, we evaluated lactose-positive pediococci for this application. Because we could not identify any commercially available pediococci with fast acid-producing ability in milk, we transformed Pediococcus pentosaceus ATCC 25744, P. pentosaceus ATCC 25745, and Pediococcus acidilactici ATCC 12697 by electroporation with pPN-1, a 35-kb Lactococcus lactis lactose plasmid. Transformants of P. pentosaceus ATCC25745and P.acidilactici ATCC12697werethenusedtoexaminelactose-positivepediococci forpropertiesrelatedtomilkfermentation.Bothtransformantsrapidlyproducedacidandefficientlyretained pPN-1 in lactose broth, and neither bacterium was attacked by bacteriophages in whey collected from com- mercial cheese facilities. Paired starter combinations of Pediococcus spp. and Lactobacillus helveticus LH100 exhibited synergistic pH reduction in milk, and small-scale cheese trials showed that these cultures could be used to manufacture part-skim mozzarella cheese. Results demonstrate that lactose-positive pediococci have potential as replacement cocci for S. thermophilus in Italian cheese starter blends and may facilitate develop- ment of new strain rotation schemes to combat S. thermophilus bacteriophage problems in mozzarella cheese plants.

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