Luca Martirani

Background: Heat and cold shock response are normally considered as independent phenomena. A small amount of evidence suggests instead that interactions may exist between them in two Lactococcus strains. Results: We show the occurrence of molecular relationships between the mechanisms of cold and heat adaptations in Streptococcus thermophilus, a lactic acid bacterium widely used in dairy fermentation, where it undergoes both types of stress. We observed that cryotolerance is increased when cells are pre-incubated at high temperature. In addition, the production of a protein, identified as ClpL, a member of the heat-shock ATPase family Clp A/B, is induced at both high and low temperature. A knock-out clpL mutant is deficient in both heat and cold tolerance. However lack of production of this protein does not abolish the positive effect of heat pre-treatment towards cryotolerance. Conclusion: Dual induction of ClpL by cold and heat exposure of cells and reduced tolerance to both temperature shocks in a clpL mutant indicates that the two stress responses are correlated in S. thermophilus. However this protein is not responsible by itself for cryotolerance of cells pre-treated at high temperature, indicating that ClpL is necessary for the two phenomena, but does not account by itself for the relationships between them.

Applications of bacteriocins as food preservatives have been so far limited, principally because of their low antimicrobial activity in foods. Nisin is the only bacteriocin of significant use, but applications are restricted principally because of its very low activity at neutral or alkaline pH. Thus the isolation of new bacteriocins active in foods is desirable. We isolated a Bacillus licheniformis thermophilic strain producing a bacteriocin with some novel features, named here bacillocin 490. This bacteriocin was inactivated by pronase E and proteinase K and was active against closely related Bacillus spp. both in aerobic and in anaerobic conditions. Bactericidal activity was kept during storage at 4°C and was remarkably stable in a wide pH range. The bacteriocin was partially purified by elution after adhesion to cells of the food-isolated strain Bacillus smithii and had a rather low mass (2 KDa). Antimicrobial activity against B. smithii was observed also when this organism was grown in water buffalo milk. Bacillocin 490 is a novel candidate as a food anti-microbial agent since it displays its activity in milk, is stable to heat treatment and during storage, is active in a wide pH range and has bactericidal activity also at high temperature. These features may allow the use of bacillocin 490 during processes performed at high temperature and as a complementary antimicrobial agent of nisin against some Bacillus spp. in non-acidic foods. The small size suggests its use on solid foods.