Increasing attention has been paid to the potential probiotic effects of Latilactobacillus sakei. To explore the genetic diversity of L. sakei, 14 strains isolated from different niches (feces, fermented kimchi, and meat products) and 54 published strains were compared and analyzed. The results showed that the average genome size and GC content of L. sakei were 1.98 Mb and 41.22%, respectively. Its core genome mainly encodes translation and transcription, amino acid synthesis, glucose metabolism, and defense functions. L. sakei has open pan-genomic characteristics, and its pan-gene curve shows an upward trend. The genetic diversity of L. sakei is mainly reflected in carbohydrate utilization, antibiotic tolerance, and immune/competition-related factors, such as clustering regular interval short palindromic repeat sequence (CRISPR)-Cas. The CRISPR system is mainly IIA type, and a few are IIC types. This work provides a basis for the study of this species.
Keywords: CRISPR-Cas; Latilactobacillus sakei; antibiotic tolerance; carbohydrate utilization; comparative genomics.