The extracellular biology of the lactobacilli

Abstract

Lactobacilli belong to the lactic acid bacteria, which play a key role in industrial and artisan food raw-material fermentation, including a large variety of fermented dairy products. Next to their role in fermentation processes, specific strains of Lactobacillus are currently marketed as health-promoting cultures or probiotics. The last decade has witnessed the completion of a large number of Lactobacillus genome sequences, including the genome sequences of some of the probiotic species and strains. This development opens avenues to unravel the Lactobacillus-associated health-promoting activity at the molecular level. It is generally considered likely that an important part of the Lactobacillus effector molecules that participate in the proposed health-promoting interactions with the host (intestinal) system resides in the bacterial cell envelope. For this reason, it is important to accurately predict the Lactobacillus exoproteomes. Extensive annotation of these exoproteomes, combined with comparative analysis of species- or strain-specific exoproteomes, may identify candidate effector molecules, which may support specific effects on host physiology associated with particular Lactobacillus strains. Candidate health-promoting effector molecules of lactobacilli can then be validated via mutant approaches, which will allow for improved strain selection procedures, improved product quality control criteria and molecular science-based health claims.

Genomics of Weissella cibaria with an examination of its metabolic traits

“…One of the shared regions between these two strains includes genes putatively involved in techoic acid biosynthesis. Of all the W. cibaria isolates, both MG1 and ff3PR also contain a greater number of proteins that encode MucBP mucus-binding domains (Kleerebezem et al, 2010). In addition to their shared plasmid, as previously discussed, these findings raise interesting questions as to the evolution of both strains.…”

Functional genomics of Lactobacillus casei establishment in the gut

“…Biogenesis of the cell wall. Cell wall-associated proteins have been favorite targets in Lactobacillus-host interactions (30) (Table S2). Nevertheless, other mutants in the input pool could compensate for this loss of function.…”

Proteomic Studies of the Effects of Different Stress Conditions on Central Carbon Metabolism in Microorganisms

“…Lactobacilli, which play a crucial role in the production of a large variety of fermented foods, are generally considered to be of low virulence, rarely causing infection in humans [44]. Lactobacilli are able to induce a series of acid stress responses to survive and grow in acidic environments.…”