Weissellicin 110, a Newly Discovered Bacteriocin from Weissella cibaria 110, Isolated from Plaa-Som, a Fermented Fish Product from Thailand

Abstract

Weissella cibaria 110, isolated from the Thai fermented fish product plaa-som, was found to produce a bacteriocin active against some gram-positive bacteria. Bacteriocin activity was not eliminated by exposure to high temperatures or catalase but was destroyed by exposure to the proteolytic enzymes proteinase K and trypsin. The bacteriocin from W. cibaria 110 was purified, and sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showed that the purified bacteriocin contained one protein band that was approximately 2.5 kDa in size. Mass spectrometry analysis showed the mass of the peptide to be approximately 3,487.8 Da. N-terminal amino acid sequence analysis was performed, and 27 amino acids were identified. Because it has no similarity to other known bacteriocins, this bacteriocin was defined as a new bacteriocin and termed weissellicin 110.Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have long played important roles in food technology. The LAB include a wide variety of cell types with various physiological and biochemical characteristics. The isolation of LAB from milk products, fermented foods, and plants has frequently been reported. The phylogeny of the bacteria classified currently in the genus Weissella was clarified in 1990 (16), and the taxonomy of Weissella species was further assessed in 1993 (5). Weissella species have been isolated from a variety of sources, and some of them play important roles in fermentation (1). Weissella cibaria was first described by Björkroth et al.(1) and later found in various kinds of fermented foods (6,19).Bacteriocins are peptides produced by bacteria that kill or inhibit the growth of closely related bacteria. Bacteriocins produced by LAB have attracted special interest as potential safe, alternative food preservatives (4,8,15). Many bacteriocins associated with Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, and Leuconostoc species have been described previously (4). However, bacteriocins from Weissella species remain rare, and to our knowledge, no bacteriocins from W. cibaria (1, 9) have been reported previously.W. cibaria 110 (AB261010/DDBJ; DNA Data Bank of Japan [http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/]) isolated from plaa-som (17), a fermented fish product from Thailand, was found to produce a bacteriocin active against some gram-positive bacteria. The present paper describes the purification and analysis of this bacteriocin and discusses its similarities to other known peptides. This is the first study to clarify the characteristics of a W. cibaria bacteriocin. MATERIALS AND METHODSW. cibaria 110. Ten strains of W. cibaria were isolated from plaa-som samples collected from Bangkok, Thailand, and their activities against the indicator strain Lactobacillus sakei JCM 1157 T were determined. Only strain 110 showed activity; this strain was identified using the API 50CHL kit, and the identification was confirmed using 16S rRNA sequence analysis. W. cibaria 110 was therefore used as the bacteriocin-producing strain in this study. Inhibitory activity was determined using the agar well diffusion assay described by ...

Characterization and identification of weissellicin Y and weissellicin M, novel bacteriocins produced by Weissella hellenica QU 13

“…A few preliminary studies on bacteriocins from Weissella genus have been previously presented (Papathanasopoulos et al 1997;Srionnual et al 2007;Papagianni and Papamichael 2011). To our knowledge, the present study is the first report that clarifies the structural genes as well as complete primary structures of bacteriocins from Weissella genus.…”

Detection and Characterization of Weissellicin 110, a Bacteriocin Produced by Weissella cibaria

“…Comparing W. cibaria 860106 peptide with other Weissella bacteriocins, both the N-terminal protein sequence and the molecular weight match weissellicin 110 (8). However, the nucleotide sequence of weissellicin 110 was not reported and no sequence was observed via BLAST.…”

“…Weissella cibaria strains 860106 and 110, and the main indicator strain Weissella paramesenteroides BCRC 14006 T , were grown in de Man Rogosa and Sharpe (MRS) medium (BD, Franklin Lakes, NJ, USA) at 30ºCs under aerobic conditions without shaking.Inhibitory activity was determined using agar-well diffusion assay described by Srionnual et al (8). The same culture conditions were used for the propagation of another 19 W. cibaria strains isolated from fermented ginger (2), 5 isolated from fermented cummingcordia or its cummingcordia (14), and 3 isolated from pickled peaches (15).…”

“…This bacteriocin represents several unique features; it is sta-ble after high-temperature treatment and has a arrow spectrum of inhibition of other LAB. Additionally, unlike most class II bacteriocins produced by LAB, weissellicin 110 had no activity against Listeria monocytogenes.However, the genetic information was not available in the previous study (8). W. cibaria 860106, isolated from the yan-dong-gua (fermented wax gourd), is able to produce a bacteriocin but not fully characterized (13).…”

“…A limited number of bacteriocins, such as weissellicin 110, weissellin A, weissellicin Y, weissellicin M, and weissellicin L, have been reported previously from Weissella spp. (8)(9)(10)(11)(12). The lengths of these bacteriocins range from 42 to 52 amino acid residues and these sequences are highly diverse, thus it is impracticable to design degenerate primers to amplify the bacteriocins of Weissella spp.…”