Lactobacilli identification by comparative sequence analyses of the tuf gene

摘要

Lactobacilli are very important in food industry since they are used as starter cultures for fermentation processes and as probiotics in fermented milk or yogurts. The genus Lactobacillus is very heterogeneous even though some clustered species are genotypically very closely related. The taxonomy of lactobacilli is still not clear, and its division into three metabolic groups does not agree with more recent phylogenetic studies by rRNA sequencing. Other phylogenetic markers, such as the recA gene, have been used for the differentiation of bacteria, particularly of species of some Lactobacilli groups.