What are bacteriocins used for?
What are bacteriocins used for?
The use of bacteriocins has been reported for the following: food preservation, diverse therapeutic purposes such as treatment of peptic ulcer, spermicidal agent, and woman care, anticancerous agent, veterinary use, skincare, and oral care, and also for plant growth promotion in agriculture among others.
How does bacteriocins help in preservation?
Among them, bacteriocin is used as a preservative in food due to its heat stability, wider pH tolerance and its proteolytic activity. Due to thermo stability and pH tolerance it can withstand heat and acidity/alkanity of food during storage condition.
Are bacteriocins safe?
monocytogenes found in a naturally contaminated salami sausage decreased when the product was inoculated with the bacteriocin producer Lactob. plantarum MCS1 (Campanini et al., 1993).
Are bacteriocins probiotics?
Many antibacterial substances, such as bacteriocins, short chain fatty acids, and hydrogen peroxide, are produced by probiotics for inhibiting gastrointestinal microorganisms or pathogens. Dobson et al. (2012) considered that bacteriocins are one of the traits of probiotics.
What are the roles of bacteriocins in food safety?
Probiotics produced by bacteriocins can balance the bacteria in the digestive tract to reduce gastrointestinal diseases. Purified bacteriocins can be added directly to foods as a natural preservative. Bacteriocins can be added to animal feed as an anti-pathogen additive to protect livestock against pathogen damage.
How are Bacteriocins obtained?
Bacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria that have bactericidal or bacteriostatic effects on similar or closely related bacterial strains. Bacteriocins show an antagonistic activity against various pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes.
Can Bacteriocins be used as antibiotics?
There are many bacteriocins that exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity. As with broad-spectrum antibiotics, this is an attractive trait, as it allows us to target infections of unknown aetiology.
