Studies on the structure of capsular polysaccharide produced fron dairy Lactic acid bacteria.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens sp. nov. is described. Four strains of this species isolated from kefir grains withthe modified KPL medium are slime-forming, homofermentative, rod-shaped lactic acid bacteria. They differ from all the validly descibed homofermentative species of the genus Lactobacillus in their carbohydrate fermentation pattern. Their guanine-plus-cytosine content of deoxyribonucleic acids obtained from six other Lactobacillus species do not show significant relatedness to a representative strain of the new species. The type strain of L. kefiranofaciens sp. nov. is WT-2B(ATCC 43761).Comparative studies of polysaccharides from kefir grains were performed by gel filtration, sugar composition analysis and methylation analysis. The characteristics of the polysaccharides from kefir grains were similar to those of an encasuled monofermentative Lactobacillus species, but different from that of L. kefir. It is concluded that an encapsulad homofermentative Lactobacillus-species is mainly responsible for polysaccharide production in the grains.