A Natural Way of Food Preservation: Bacteriocins and Their Applications

Abstract

Since the consumers demand foods produced without additives, new friendly preservation strategies become significant in processing of foods. Bacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized peptides produced from many bacterial strains which are approved as natural due to being degraded by digestive enzymes. In Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), many strains have been identified as bacteriocin producers. In fact, nisin was approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be used as food additive in some foods. Lacticin and pediocin producers, Lactococcus lactis and Pediococcus acidilactici, respectively, have been used as protective cultures in food system. Bacteriocins produced by some LAB have shown wide antimicrobial activity against food related pathogens species such as Bacillus, Listeria, Staphylococcus and Clostridium. However, in recent years bacteriocins having specifically narrow-spectrum antimicrobial activity have been introduced.