Biotechnological and safety characterization of Enterococcus lactis, a recently described species of dairy origin

The biotechnological and safety properties of a recently described enterococcal species, Enterococcus lactis, were investigated. With regard to the technological properties, in milk all the strains tested had weak acidifying and proteolytic activities, generally medium reduction activity over 24 h (-102 mV < Eh < -2 mV) and low lipolytic activity on tributyrin agar. The isolates were tested for resistance against 14 antibiotics and none of the studied strains were classified as resistant to clinically important antibiotics such as ampicillin, erythromycin, penicillin G, tetracycline and vancomycin. Furthermore, PCR-based detection did not identify any of the common genetic determinants for vancomycin, tetracycline and erythromycin resistance. The E. lactis strains showed good survival in simulated in vitro digestion and were able to inhibit the growth of Enterococcus durans, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Clostridium sporogenes, Clostridium tyrobutyricum and Pseudomonas syringae. Screening for enterocin structural genes showed that all isolates harboured the entP gene. The presence of nine virulence factor genes (cylA, asa1, gelE, hyl, esp, ace, efaA, hdc and tdc) was investigated by PCR and no virulence determinants were detected. This study highlights that the recently described E. lactis may be a potential source of novel strains with interesting features that could be used for fermented dairy foods.