CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) are a heterologous group of microorganisms that have been isolated from numerous ecological niches, including fermented foods, plants, and the gastrointestinal tract of animals. Because of their generally regarded as safe status (GRAS), there has been great interest in using these microorganisms in food production, as probiotic microorganisms or as biotechnological tools. This book will describesome of the many benefits of LAB including: i) their use in foods where advances in the fight against spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in foods,their thermotolerance, their microencapsulation and responses to osmoticchallenges will be discussed; ii) their capacity to produce beneficial compounds including bioactive peptides, biosurfactants, gamma-aminobutyric acidand antimicrobial products such as organic acids, hydrogen peroxide,bacteriocins and peptidoglycan hydrolases; and iii) their effect on health and other applications such as their use as DNA vaccine delivery system, bile-salt hydrolase and exopolysaccharides production as well as the use of spore forming LAB. This new book is a compilation of topics that have been written by experts from all over the world (Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Mexico, and Thailand) who work in different research settings offering varying viewpoints on the mos tup-to-date information currently available on the uses and many benefits of Lactic Acid Bacteria.This book contains 13 chapters that have been divided into 3 main sections: i) the use of LAB in foods; ii) beneficial compounds produced by LAB; and iii) the effects of LAB on health and other applications.In the first section the use of LAB in the fight against spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms in foods, the themotolerance of probiotic LAB in cooked meat products, the microencapsulation of LAB in meat products and LAB responses to osmotic challenges will be discussed by an Argentinean, a Mexican, a Brazilian, and a Greek group. In the second section, LAB as a source of bioactive peptides and surfactants, antimicrobial products such as bacteriocins and peptidoglycan hydrolases, and of gamma-aminobutyric acid will be discussed by Argentinean, Mexican, and Thai groups. In the final section, the effects of LAB on health and other applications will be reviewed. Here, the use of LAB as a DNA vaccine delivery system, the potential of bile salt hydrolase activities of LAB on health, exopolysaccharide-related aspects of LAB and the utilization of spore-forming LAB will be discussed by Brazilian, Thai and Argentinean esearchers. We would like to express our recognition to effort of all the authors that have contributed to this book. We are also grateful to staff of Nova Publishers for their professionalism and their confidence in allow us to put together this important work. On a personal note we would like to acknowledge the Centro de Referencia para Lactobacilos (CERELA) and the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán for their academic support and the CONICET and FonCyT for their constant financial support.