Mahony Jennifer, van Sinderen Douwe
Department of Microbiology, University College Cork Cork, Ireland.
Department of Microbiology, University College Cork Cork, Ireland ; Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, Biosciences Institute, University College Cork Cork, Ireland.
Front Microbiol. 2014 Jan 24;5:7. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2014.00007. eCollection 2014.
Phages infecting lactic acid bacteria have been the focus of significant research attention over the past three decades. Through the isolation and characterization of hundreds of phage isolates, it has been possible to classify phages of the dairy starter and adjunct bacteria Lactococus lactis, Streptococcus thermophilus, Leuconostoc spp., and Lactobacillus spp. Among these, phages of L. lactis have been most thoroughly scrutinized and serve as an excellent model system to address issues that arise when attempting taxonomic classification of phages infecting other LAB species. Here, we present an overview of the current taxonomy of phages infecting LAB genera of industrial significance, the methods employed in these taxonomic efforts and how these may be employed for the taxonomy of phages of currently underrepresented and emerging phage species.
在过去三十年中，感染乳酸菌的噬菌体一直是重要的研究焦点。通过分离和鉴定数百株噬菌体，已能够对用于乳制品发酵剂和辅助发酵剂的乳酸乳球菌、嗜热链球菌、明串珠菌属和乳杆菌属细菌的噬菌体进行分类。其中，乳酸乳球菌噬菌体受到了最深入的研究，并作为一个优秀的模型系统，用于解决在尝试对感染其他乳酸菌物种的噬菌体进行分类时出现的问题。在此，我们概述了感染具有工业意义的乳酸菌属的噬菌体的当前分类法、这些分类工作中采用的方法，以及如何将这些方法用于目前代表性不足的噬菌体物种和新出现的噬菌体物种的分类。
