Characterisation of lactic acid bacteria isolated from naturally fermented Greek dry salami.

A total of 348 lactic acid bacteria isolated from five batches of naturally fermented dry salami at various stages of ripening were characterised. The majority of the strains were assigned to two main phylogenetic groups of species: (i) the psychrotrophic, formerly called atypical, meat streptobacteria (169 strains) and (ii) a new genus Weissella (120), which was recently proposed (Collins et al., 1993) to include Leuconostoc paramesenteroides and some other closely related species. Meat streptobacteria were identified as Lactobacillus curvatus (88 strains) and L. sake (76), whereas 5 strains were indistinguishable and, thus designated L. sake/curvatus. Non-psychrotrophic streptobacteria were also isolated and identified as L. plantarum (34 strains), L. farciminis (10), L. coryniformis (1) and L. casei subsp. pseudoplantarum (1). The majority of the Weissella strains (86) were leuconostoc-like bacteria; four of them were identified as W. viridescens, 11 belonged to the newly described W. hellenica (Collins et al., 1993), another 11 resembled W. paramesenteroides, whereas 60 isolates were not classified to any species. The latter group comprised strains that produced D(L)-lactate. The remaining Weissella were gas-forming, arginine-positive rods assigned to W. minor (31) and W. halotolerans (3). Other species identified were Enterococcus faecium (10), Leuconostoc mesenteroides (1), L. brevis (1) and Pediococcus sp. (1). The main criteria used to distinguish between above species as well as their distribution on the five salami batches in relation to their succession with time and suitability as starters were discussed.