SCREENING OF BACTERIOCIN-PRODUCING LACTIC ACID BACTERIA ASSOCIATED WITH THAI FERMENTED MEAT-RICE SAUSAGE

摘要

IntroductionLactic acid bacteria (LAB) are widely used as starter cultures for reliable and consistent acid production in various fermented foods. The inhibition of other microorganisms may also occur by the formation of various compounds, which produces during fermentation. Among the variety of these inhibitory compounds synthesized by these LAB, bacteriocins have been received much attention in the past decade (Ennahar et al., 1996; Gaenzle et al., 1997; Swetwiwathana, 2005). Thai fermented meat-rice sausage is a kind of traditional thai fermented meat, which is normally made of minced pork, cooked rice, cooked salt, garlic and food additives, mixed well and stuffed tightly in edible casing. The product is left to ferment at the room temperature for 2-3 days. The most important microorganisms during the spontaneous fermentation of this product belong to the LAB genera Lactobacillus, Pediococcus and Micrococcus. According to numerous reports on using LAB and bacteriocin-producing LAB as starter cultures to harm various pathogens in fermented foods (Hammes and Knauf, 1994;Ennahar et al., 1996) and traditional thai fermented meat such as Nham (Swetwiwathana et ai., 1999;Swetwiwathana et al., 2005), thus, an attempt on finding the most potent bacteriocin-producing LAB strains from meat-rice sausage and use of these potent strains as starter cultures in order to improve the quality and safety during the fermentation of this product was studied and reported in this paper.