The Lactobacillus plantarum and Lactobacillus pentosus genotypes existing in industrial-scale cucumber fermentations were defined using rep-PCR-(GTG)5. The ability of each genotype to ferment cucumbers under various conditions was evaluated. Rep-PCR-(GTG)5 was the technique capable of illustrating the most intraspecies discrimination compared to the sequencing of housekeeping genes (recA, dnaK, pheS and rpoA), MLST and RAPD with primers LP1, OPL5, M14 and COC. Ten genotypic clusters were defined for the 199 L. pentosus tested and three for the 17 L. plantarum clones. The ability of the 216 clones genotyped and 37 additional cucumber fermentation isolates, of the same species, to rapidly decrease the pH of cucumber juice medium under various combinations of sodium chloride (0 or 6%), initial pH (4.0 or 5.2) and temperatures (15 or 30 °C) was determined using a fractional factorial screening design. A reduced fermentation ability was observed for the L. plantarum strains as compared to L. pentosus, except for clone 3.2.8, which had a ropy phenotype and aligned to genotypic cluster A. L. pentosus strains belonging to three genotypic clusters (B, D and J) were more efficient in cucumber juice fermentation as compared to most L. plantarum strains. This research identified three genetically diverse L. pentosus strains and one L. plantarum as candidates for starter cultures for commercial cucumber fermentations.
Keywords: Cucumber fermentation; Lactic acid bacteria; RAPD; Rep-PCR; Screening design; Starter culture.
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