LAUSR

Abstract Lactic acid bacteria play a very important role in food fermentation. For strain identification, characterization and protection, it is important to use highly discriminatory identification methods. In the present study, 37 strains isolated from vegetables and food products of Korea were identified using 16S rDNA gene sequencing and were found to be Leuconostoc mesenteroides. Further, molecular characterization of all the strains was performed using two RAPD primers, i.e. 239 and KAY3. All strains have shown RAPD profiles and the amplified products of the profiles ranged from 300 to 4000 bp with both the primers and only small differences in banding pattern were observed. Out of 37, maximum bands were observed in strain 11436 with 239 and strain 11260 with KAY3. With both the primers, the phylogenetic analysis revealed seven clades which could be further subdivided into groups. The dendrogram was constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages (UPGMA). The results showed that 16S rDNA sequencing and RAPD-PCR are suitable preliminary molecular tools for identification and characterization of bacteria.