Genome heterogeneity in Lactobacillus helveticus: Rethinking a “niche specialist”*

ABSTRACT: Lactobacillus helveticus is a rod-shaped lactic acid bacterium that is widely used in the manufacture of fermented dairy foods and for production of bioactive peptides from milk proteins. Although L. helveticus is commonly associated with milk environments, phylogenetic studies show it is closely related to an intestinal species, Lactobacillus acidophilus, which has been shown to impart probiotic health benefits to humans. This relationship has fueled a prevailing hypothesis that L. helveticus is a highly specialized derivative of L. acidophilus which has adapted to acidified whey. However, L. helveticus has also been sporadically recovered from non-dairy environments, which argues the species may not be as highly specialized as is widely believed. This study employed genome sequence a

ORGANISM(S): Lactobacillus helveticus

SUBMITTER: Jeff Broadbent 

PROVIDER: E-GEOD-23660 | biostudies-arrayexpress |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-arrayexpress