| Description: |
Lactobacilli are normal inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract of man and animals where they are widely considered to exert a number of beneficial roles including immunomodulation, interference with enteric pathogens, and maintenance of a healthy intestinal microflora. Historically, probiotic roles have been ascribed primarily to Lactobacillus acidophilus. The genus Lactobacillus presently comprises more than 50 recognized species of non pathogenic bacteria which in addition to their probiotic effects are useful to human as indispensable agents for the fermentation of foods and feed. Like other lactic acid bacteria, L. casei are acid tolerant, cannot synthesize porphyrins, and possess a strictly fermentative metabolism with lactic acid as the major metabolic end product.
Within the genus Lactobacillus, L. casei form part of the facultatively heterofermentative species cluster, which produce lactic acid from hexose sugars via the Embden-Meyerhof pathway and from pentoses by the 6-phosphogluconate/phosphoketolase pathway. L. casei are a remarkably adaptive species, and may be isolated from raw and fermented dairy products, fresh and fermented plant products, and the reproductive and intestinal tracts of humans and other animals. Industrially, L. casei have application as human probiotics (health-promoting live culture), as acid-producing starter cultures for milk fermentation, and as specialty cultures for the intensification and acceleration of flavor development in certain bacterial-ripened cheese varieties (adapted from http://genome.jgi-psf.org/finished_microbes/lacca/lacca.home.html). Strain BL23 has been widely used for genetic, physiological and biochemical studies. It has been cured of plasmid pLZ15 and therefore contains only a single circular chromosome (PubMed 12369195). |
ExPASy Home page
CBR Canada