Characterization of the bacteriocin BacJ1 and its effectiveness for the inactivation of Salmonella typhimurium during turkey escalope storage.

During a screening programme for bacteriocin producers, a new lactic acid bacterium called J1, isolated from chicken gizzard, was noted to produce a bacteriocin (BacJ1) that inhibited Gram-positive and Gram-negative food-borne pathogens, especially Salmonella typhimurium, and it was, therefore, selected for identification and further study. The results, from 16S rRNA gene nucleotide sequencing (1583 pb accession no HE861352) and phylogenetic analysis, suggested that the new isolate be assigned as Weissella paramesenteroides J1. BacJ1 was purified from the culture supernatant of the J1 strain using heat treatment (15 min at 90 °C), 80% ammonium sulfate precipitation, and gel filtration (Sephadex G25). MALDI-TOF analyses revealed that BacJ1 had an exact molecular mass of 1881.036 Da. The analysis of the N-terminal sequence (GPAGPFGKLY) of this active peptide revealed no significant similarity to currently available antimicrobial peptides. The addition of pre-purified BacJ1, at a final concentration of 400 AU per gramme, may open new promising opportunities for the prevention of contamination from and growth of pathogenic bacteria, particularly S. typhimurium, during turkey escalope storage at 4 °C.