EVALUATION OF THE ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF Enterococcus mundtii CRL35 IN WHEY

SALVUCCI E; PESCUMA M; BUSTOS AY; SESMA F.

Tafí del Valle, Tucumán

Congreso; XXIV ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING; 2008

Sociedad Biología de Tucuman

In Argentina, regional cheeses are made with non pasteurized milkwith high microbiological risk. Some cheeses are manufacturedwith whey and fermented for 20 h with a temperature gradient thatfavors the selection of specific strains that confer the specific char-acteristics of each cheese.Enterococcus mundtii CRL35, isolated from artisanal cheese fromTucumán, produces enterocin CRL35, a subclass IIa bacteriocinwith antilisterial activity. In order to improve the microbiologicalquality of Argentinean cheeses, in this preliminar work we evalu-ated the ability of this strain to produce enterocin CRL35 in whey,an inexpensive medium with technological applicability.In whey, the producer strain has a slightly lower growth than in theoptimal medium LAPTg (2,1.109 vs. 2,2.1010  CFU/mL. after 8 h).Bacteriocin production was also lower in whey (1,5.104 ArbitraryUnits per milliliter [AU/mL] vs. 1,2.105 in LAPTg). These levels ofactivity could be associated with the differences in growth. Bacte-riocin production in whey is accompanied by low pH variation. Thisstudy demonstrates the production of this antimicrobial peptide inwhey, an inexpensive substrate of interest for industrial application.