Département de biochimie, de microbiologie et de bio-informatique, Faculté des sciences et de génie, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada; Groupe de recherche en écologie buccale, Faculté de médecine dentaire, Université Laval, Québec, QC, Canada.
Département de microbiologie et immunologie, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Int J Food Microbiol. 2023 Sep 2;400:110252. doi: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2023.110252. Epub 2023 May 23.
Phages are ubiquitous and are particularly abundant in environments where their bacterial hosts thrive, such as those in the cheese industry. Although it is well documented that phages infect lactic acid bacteria, their impact has been notably overlooked on cheese ripening strains, such as Brevibacterium aurantiacum. Here, we aimed to study the impact of B. aurantiacum phages on the production of smear-ripened cheeses. We used model cheeses in industrial settings to monitor the development of the color of the cheese rind as well as of its microbial composition in presence or absence of virulent B. aurantiacum phages. Our results showed that the presence of B. aurantiacum phages significantly slowed down the development of the orange rind color in the model cheeses. In the final days of cheese ripening, phages were also detected in the control curds. By analyzing a hypervariable region of B. aurantiacum phage genomes, we detected phages with tandem repeat patterns that were different from those used in the phage-inoculated cheeses. Our results highlight the risks of using a phage-sensitive strain in smear-ripened cheese production. This is the first study to report on the impact of B. aurantiacum phages on smear-ripened cheeses.
噬菌体无处不在，在其细菌宿主大量存在的环境中尤其丰富，例如奶酪行业。尽管噬菌体感染乳酸菌的情况已有大量记载，但它们对奶酪成熟菌株（如橙色短杆菌）的影响却明显被忽视了。在这里，我们旨在研究橙色短杆菌噬菌体对涂抹奶酪生产的影响。我们使用工业环境中的模型奶酪来监测奶酪外皮颜色的发展以及其微生物组成，同时存在或不存在毒性橙色短杆菌噬菌体。我们的结果表明，橙色短杆菌噬菌体的存在显著减缓了模型奶酪中橙色外皮颜色的发展。在奶酪成熟的最后几天，对照凝乳中也检测到了噬菌体。通过分析橙色短杆菌噬菌体基因组的高变区，我们检测到了具有串联重复模式的噬菌体，这些模式与接种噬菌体的奶酪中使用的模式不同。我们的结果强调了在涂抹奶酪生产中使用噬菌体敏感菌株的风险。这是首次报道橙色短杆菌噬菌体对涂抹奶酪的影响的研究。
