Bacteriophage-insensitive mutants for high quality Crescenza manufacture.

Streptococcus thermophilus is a thermophilic lactic acid bacterium used as starter culture for the manufacture of fermented dairy products. For the production of Crescenza and other soft cheeses, Sacco has developed and provides dairies with three different defined blends of S. thermophilus strains. Each blend contains two different S. thermophilus strains. The strains were selected based on their unique technological properties as well as different phage profiles. Analysis of 133 whey samples collected in 2009-2010 from Italian dairies showed a high prevalence (about 50%) of bacteriophage attacks on the blend ST020. More specifically, the strain S. thermophilus ST1A was found to be the preferred target of the bacteriophages. A bacteriophage insensitive mutant (BIM5) of the phage-sensitive strain ST1A was successfully developed and used to substitute strain ST1A in the Crescenza starter culture ST020. The strain BIM5 showed identical technological and industrial traits as those of the phage-sensitive strain ST1A. The improved resistance of the modified Crescenza starter culture ST020R was confirmed at Italian dairies, and its effectiveness monitored on 122 whey samples collected in 2011-2012. Compared to the previous values (2009-2010), the use of the phage-hardened blend ST020R allowed reducing of frequency of phage attacks from about 50 to less than 5% of the whey samples investigated.

Sequence and comparative analysis of Leuconostoc dairy bacteriophages.

Bacteriophages attacking Leuconostoc species may significantly influence the quality of the final product. There is however limited knowledge of this group of phages in the literature. We have determined the complete genome sequences of nine Leuconostoc bacteriophages virulent to either Leuconostoc mesenteroides or Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides strains. The phages have dsDNA genomes with sizes ranging from 25.7 to 28.4 kb. Comparative genomics analysis helped classify the 9 phages into two classes, which correlates with the host species. High percentage of similarity within the classes on both nucleotide and protein levels was observed. Genome comparison also revealed very high conservation of the overall genomic organization between the classes. The genes were organized in functional modules responsible for replication, packaging, head and tail morphogenesis, cell lysis and regulation and modification, respectively. No lysogeny modules were detected. To our knowledge this report provides the first comparative genomic work done on Leuconostoc dairy phages.