• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.127-133
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• 2010

The purpose of this work was to investigate the antibacterial activity derived from a lactic acid bacterium, Lactococcus lactis HK-9, isolated from the feces of a 2-day newborn infant. We characterized the physiological and biochemical properties of this strain. Both the BIOLOG system and phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA sequencing were utilized for identification, and the strain was assigned to the Lactococcus lactis species, designated as L. lactis HK-9, and registered in GenBank as [GU936712]. We monitored growth rate, production of lactic acid and acetic acid as metabolites, and pH during growth. The maximum concentrations of lactic acid and acetic acid reached 495.6 mM and 104.3 mM, respectively, and the initial pH of the cultures decreased from 7.0 to 4.1 after incubating for 60 h. HPLC was used to confirm the production of lactic acid and acetic acid. Significant antibacterial activity of the concentrated supernatant was demonstrated against Gram-positive (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, Listeria monocytogenes, MRSA) and Gram-negative (e.g., Escherichia coli, Salmonella enteritidis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Shigella sonnei) bacteria by the plate diffusion method. The antibacterial activity was sensitive to protease, and the molecular weight of the presumed bacteriocin molecule was estimated to be about 4 kDa by tricine-SDS-PAGE.