Medium for Differential Enumeration of Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus acidophilus from lyophilized mixed cultures

LOCASCIO, M.M.; ALESSO, R.; MORATA, V.I.; GONZÁLEZ, S.N.

Environmental Microbiology.

Humana Press

Año: 2006; p. 257 - 261

It is very important for the dairy industry to have methods to determine the microbial content of different products (1?3). Probiotics, prebiotics, and eubiotics are foods that improve health status through selected bacteria 4). The nutritinal benefit of probiotics has been investigated in relation to fermentation, quantity, availability, and nutrient absorption. These kinds of foods are fermented products, but they are also augmented with beneficial microorganisms (5?10). The addition of probiotic microorganisms to milk products produces not only organoleptic but also biological and therapeutic characteristics. Differential cell counts in a product with mixed cultures are indispensable to control quality during its shelf life. To be suitable for industrial applications, a method for viable microbe counting and identification should be reliable, easy to prepare, quick, and of low cost; this is the selective medium. In some cases, there are no differences between lactobacillus sugar fermentation profiles that permit the differential growth of one without development of the other one. Generally, fluid fermented products use concentrated frozen cells as starter cultures.