CHARACTERIZATION OF LACTIC-ACID BACTERIA ISOLATED FROM NATURALLY FERMENTED GREEK DRY SALAMI

A total of 348 lactic acid bacteria isolated from five batches of natu rally fermented dry salami at various stages of ripening were characte rised. The majority of the strains were assigned to two main phylogene tic groups of species: (i) the psychrotrophic, formerly called atypica l, meat streptobacteria (169 strains) and (ii) a new genus Weissella ( 120), which was recently proposed (Collins et al., 1993) to include Le uconostoc paramesenteroides and some other closely related species. Me at streptobacteria were identified as Lactobacillus curvatus (88 strai ns) and L. sake (76), whereas 5 strains were indistinguisable and, thu s designated L. sake / curvatus. Non-psychrotrophic streptobacteria we re also isolated and identified as L. plantarum (34 strains), L. farci minis (10), L. coryniformis (1) and L. casei subsp. pseudoplantarum (1 ). The majority of the Weissella strains (86) were leuconostoc-like ba cteria; four of them were identified as W. viridescens, 11 belonged to the newly described W. hellenica (Collins et al., 1993), another 11 r esembled W. paramesenteroides, whereas 60 isolates were not classified to any species. The latter group comprised strains that produced D(L) -lactate. The remaining Weissella were gas-forming, arginine-positive rods assigned to W. minor (31) and W. halotolerans (3). Other species identified were Enterococcus faecium (10), Leuconostoc mesenteroides ( 1), L. brevis (1) and Pediococcus sp. (1). The main criteria used to d istinguish between above species as well as their distribution on the five salami batches in relation to their succession with time and suit ability as starters were discussed.