Lactic acid bacteria: from starter cultures to producers of chemicals.

Lactic acid bacteria constitute a diverse group of industrially significant, safe microorganisms that are primarily used as starter cultures and probiotics, and are also being developed as production systems in industrial biotechnology for biocatalysis and transformation of renewable feedstocks to commodity- and high-value chemicals, and health products. Development of strains, which was initially based mainly on natural approaches, is also achieved by metabolic engineering that has been facilitated by the availability of genome sequences and genetic tools for transformation of some of the bacterial strains. The aim of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the potential of lactic acid bacteria as biological catalysts for production of different organic compounds for food and non-food sectors based on their diversity, metabolic- and stress tolerance features, as well as the use of genetic/metabolic engineering tools for enhancing their capabilities.