Abstract
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been used for various food fermentations for thousands of years. Recently, LAB are receiving increased attention due to their great potential as probiotics for man and animals, and also as cell factories for producing enzymes, antibodies, vitamins, exopolysaccharides, and various feedstocks. LAB are safe organisms with GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status and possess relatively simple metabolic pathways easily subjected to modifications. However, relatively few studies have been carried out on LAB inhabiting plants compared to dairy LAB. Kimchi is a Korean traditional fermented vegetable, and its fermentation is carried out by LAB inhabiting plant raw materials of kimchi. Kimchi represents a model food with low pH and is fermented at low temperatures and in anaerobic environments. LAB have been adjusting to kimchi environments, and produce various metabolites such as bacteriocins, γ-aminobutyric acid, ornithine, exopolysaccharides, mannitol, etc. as products of metabolic efforts to adjust to the environments. The metabolites also contribute to the known health-promoting effects of kimchi. Due to the recent progress in multi-omics technologies, identification of genes and gene products responsible for the synthesis of functional metabolites becomes easier than before. With the aid of tools of metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, it can be envisioned that LAB strains producing valuable metabolites in large quantities will be constructed and used as starters for foods and probiotics for improving human health. Such LAB strains can also be useful as production hosts for value-added products for food, feed, and pharmaceutical industries. In this review, recent findings on the selected metabolites produced by kimchi LAB are discussed, and the potentials of metabolites will be mentioned.
Highlights
Considering the significant dominance (70%) of L. mesenteroides, bacteriocin or other antibacterial substances might be produced in these L. mesenteroides strains. These results indicate that production of kimchi with extended shelf-life, improved taste, and enhanced functionality such as mannitol production is possible by using a starter, producing a bacteriocin and a metabolite of interest at the same time
Important lactic acid bacteria (LAB) species involved in kimchi fermentation have been identified, and many of their genomes have been sequenced, detailed knowledge on the functions and potentials of metabolites are still scarce, especially for their effects inside human bodies
Kimchi serves as a model food for studying the biochemical, physiological, and genetic strategies of LAB species to adapt to acidic, low-temperature, and anaerobic kimchi environments
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Due to the rapid progress in next-generation sequencing and multi-omics technologies including metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metabolomics, our understanding on the microbial communities, succession of LAB species, highly expressed genes, and important metabolites at different stages of kimchi fermentation has been improved greatly. All these data are useful for understanding the abilities of kimchi LAB to adjust to kimchi fermentation environments and for finding methods to produce kimchi with improved functionalities. In this review, selected metabolites produced by LAB originated from kimchi are discussed for their properties, roles during kimchi fermentation, and their potential and importance for food, feed, and pharmaceutical industries
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