OXIDATION COMMUNICATIONS, cilt.39, sa.3, ss.2423-2432, 2016 (SCI-Expanded)
Probiotics are live microorganisms having profound health benefit on its host and among them lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are common group found in human food. As this is a very vast group of microorganisms having different strains, therefore genotypic identification has been performed by primers that are specific for 16s ribosomal DNA gene on a total of 24 exopolysaccharides (EPS) producing LAB: those are Lactobacillus, Enterococcus and Pediococcus isolated from Nigde cheese of Turkey. Subsequently, characterization of probiotic properties of LAB was studied by final pH, acidification, and amount of EPS concentration and aggregation properties. EPS productions by the strains were found between 54.1-93.6 mg/l. The highest EPS production was detected in the Pediococcus pentosaceus EC18 and the lowest EPS were estimated in the Enterococcus faecium EC26. All LAB strains showed auto- and coaggregation ability with Escherichia coli (E. coli) ATCC 25923 and Salmonella enterica serotype typhmurium (S. typhmurium) SL 1344. Results showed that the aggregation property is specific for each strain and dependent on EPS production. Our results indicate that the ability to autoaggregate, together with exopolysaccharide and final pH properties and coaggregation abilities with E. coli and S. typhmurium strains, can be used for preliminary screening in order to identify potentially probiotic bacteria suitable for human.