Comparative study on biochemical and molecular identification approaches of Lactobacillus species

Abstract

Manufacturers’ desire to sell “healthy” food in response to the consumers’ desire to lead a healthy lifestyle has increased the use of probiotics during the past few decades. Probiotics are used in dairy products, as well as non-dairy items as a starter culture, encompassing a wide range of goods. Numerous phenotyping, physical characterisation, and genotyping techniques have been developed to identify probiotic lactobacilli to ensure quality management. These techniques are frequently precise enough to categorise probiotic strains by genus and species. Traditional microbiological methods were initially employed for genus and species identification. However, due to their numerous shortcomings as the probiotic ability is often strain-dependent, and that there is no way to differentiate between strains using simple microbiological techniques, new methods that are mostly based on the examination of nucleic acids have been developed. Therefore, the objective of the present review was to provide critical assessment on existing methods for identifying members of the genus Lactobacillus, together with newly discovered approaches. The present review aimed to give the most recent information on the scientific techniques used to measure and describe the possible probiotic properties of microorganisms. It will also emphasise molecular and non-molecular tools. Most of these tools are based on 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing, and employ PCR techniques.