The Role of Leuconostoc mesenteroides Species of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Fermenting Vegetables

Abstract

Introduction: Fermentation is a biotechnological process of preserving the biological potential of raw materials and transforming them in order to impart new organoleptic properties and to increase nutritional value of the product allowing diversification of daily meals; thus, in some countries fermented products make up a significant part of the human diet. Despite the fact that fermented products are very useful for humans, the fermentation process itself remained rather complicated for reproduction during a long time. Currently, starter cultures are used in industrial production of fermented food products enabling the production of foodstuffs with a guaranteed range of consumer properties. Such species of lactic acid bacteria as Carnobacterium, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Leuconostoc, Oenococcus, Pediococcus, Streptococcus, Tetragenococcus, Vagococcus, and Weissella play the main role in production of fermented food and drinks while L. mesenteroides plays the primary role in starting fermentation of many types of plant materials including cabbage, beet, turnip, cauliflower, green beans, chopped green tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, etc. Objective: To control and manage the industrial fermentation process, it is important to determine the main processes occurring at different stages and the types of lactic acid microorganisms responsible for initiation, continuation and completion of the process. Results: This review shows that, despite the variety of fermentable vegetables, L. mesenteroides species of lactic acid bacteria are of particular importance at the primary heteroenzymatic stage since during this very period the processed raw materials form conditions for inhibiting pathogenic and facultative pathogenic microflora and create optimal environment for subsequent development of targeted microorganisms determining the quality of finished products. Conclusions: When developing food technology, L. mesenteroides species of lactic acid bacteria must be an indispensable component of industrial starter cultures for obtaining final products of consistently high quality.6