Bacteriocins are heat-stable ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides produced by various bacteria, including food-grade lactic acid bacteria (LAB). These antimicrobial peptides have huge potential as both food preservatives, and as next-generation antibiotics targeting the multiple-drug resistant pathogens. The increasing number of reports of new bacteriocins with unique properties indic...

BACKGROUND Evolutionary arms race plays a major role in shaping biological diversity. In microbial systems, competition often involves chemical warfare and the production of bacteriocins, narrow-spectrum toxins aimed at killing closely related strains by forming pores in their target's membrane or by degrading the target's RNA or DNA. Although many empirical and theoretical studies describe com...

Bacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized peptides or proteins with antimicrobial activity, produced by different groups of bacteria. Many lactic acid bacteria (LAB) produce bacteriocins with rather broad spectra of inhibition. Though these bacteriocins are produced by LAB found in numerous fermented and non-fermented foods, nisin is currently the only bacteriocin widely used as a food preservat...

The members of the Bacillus thuringiensis group, commonly known as Bt, produce a huge number of metabolites, which show biocidal and antagonistic activity. B. thuringiensis is widely known for synthesizing Cry, Vip and Cyt proteins, active against insects and other parasporins with biocidal activity against certain types of cancerous cells. Nevertheless, B. thuringiensis also synthesizes compou...

Bacteriocins are a kind of ribosomal synthesized antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria, which can kill or inhibit bacterial strains closely-related or non-related to produced bacteria, but will not harm the bacteria themselves by specific immunity proteins. Bacteriocins become one of the weapons against microorganisms due to the specific characteristics of large diversity of structure and...

Micro-organisms are capable of producing a range of defence mechanisms, including antibiotics, bacteriocins, lytic agents, protein exotoxins, etc. Such mechanisms have been identified in nearly 99% of studied bacteria. The multiplicity and diversity of bacteriocins and the resultant effects of their interactions with targeted bacteria on microbial ecology has been thoroughly studied and remains...

Members of the genus Bacillus are known to produce a wide arsenal of antimicrobial substances, including peptide and lipopeptide antibiotics, and bacteriocins. Many of the Bacillus bacteriocins belong to the lantibiotics, a category of post-translationally modified peptides widely disseminated among different bacterial clades. Lantibiotics are among the best-characterized antimicrobial peptides...

A model procedure has been developed for the rapid extraction of five bacteriocins (nisin, pediocin RS2, leucocin BC2, lactocin GI3, and enterocin CS1) from concentrated freeze-dried crude culture supernatants by adsorption onto acid or alkaline rice hull ash (RHA) or silicic acid (SA). Bacteriocins were adsorbed onto RHA or SA by a pH-dependent method and desorbed by decreasing the pH to 2.5 o...

Preservation of foods by natural and microbiological methods may be a satisfactory approach solving economic losses due to microbial spoilage of raw materials and food products, to reduce the incidence of food borne illnesses, and to meet the food requirements of the growing world population. Since many people are concerned about the safety of chemical preservatives are questioned with regard t...

Bacteriocins are ribosomally synthesized antimicrobial peptides produced by bacteria, which have the ability to kill or inhibit other bacteria. Many bacteriocins are produced by food grade lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Indeed, the prototypic bacteriocin, nisin, is produced by Lactococcus lactis, and is licensed in over 50 countries. With consumers becoming more concerned about the levels of chemi...