Increasing phage resistance of cheese starters: A case study using Lactococcus lactis DPC4268

Abstract

This study serves as an example of strategies used to increase the phage resistance of an important Irish Cheddar cheese starter, Lactococcus lactis DPC4268. It describes the emergence and persistence of a lytic bacteriophage, 4268, that has a relatively large burst size and exhibits no homology to the most common phage types encountered in Irish cheese plants. Inherent difficulties were encountered that prevented the effective introduction of conjugative phage-resistance plasmids pNP40 and pMRC01 to strain DPC4268. In fact, pNP40-associated Abi systems were naturally present in six of 19 starters. Control of phage 4268 was eventually achieved by generating a mutant of DPC4268, which was subsequently used for cheese manufacture.

Disciplines

Biology

DOI

10.1046/j.1472-765X.1998.00268.x

Full Publication Date

February 1998

Publication Details

Letters in Applied Microbiology

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Resource Type

journal article

Access Rights

metadata only access

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