Knowledge landscape of starter cultures: A bibliometric and patentometric study

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosmery Cruz-O'Byrne ◽  
Cristian Casallas-Useche ◽  
Nelson Piraneque-Gambasica ◽  
Sonia Aguirre-Forero

Background: Starter cultures are essential in food industry biotechnology, consisting of microorganism preparations inoculated to produce safe fermented foods with desirable sensory characteristics. Objective: This study aims to identify and analyze the growth and flow of knowledge about starter cultures by creating scientific and technological profiles using patentometric and bibliometric indicators. Methods: A search for patents and scientific articles was conducted in December 2020 following a proposed 10-step methodology using the Scopus® and Patentinspiration databases. The search strategy was based on the keywords "starter culture" and “fermentation” considering publications up to 2020. Results: A total of 3035 articles and 719 patents were published until 2020, presenting a more significant number in the last ten (10) years due to the development of biological sciences and molecular biology with enzymes and microorganisms. Italy leads the scientific production while China leads the technological. It was also possible to determine the most productive author and inventors, the most influential articles and inventions, and the main scientific journals and patent offices. Conclusion: Scientific and technological activities have an exponential behavior showing that the knowledge about starter cultures continues to grow, becoming a field of interest for optimizing industrial processes related to food fermentation, thus achieving diversification of products that can satisfy the demand for food in an increasingly competitive global market.

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Vinodh Aroon Edward

Cassava, (Manihot esculenta Crantz), is used for the production of a variety of West African foods and ranks fourth in the list of major crops in developing countries after rice, wheat and maize. Gari is one of the most popular foods produced from cassava. Cassava may contain high levels of linamarin, a cyanogenic glucoside, which in its natural state is toxic to man. Therefore, some processing methods that can enhance the detoxification of cassava and lead to the improvement of the quality and hygienic safety of the food are vitally important for less toxic products to be obtained. Quality, safety and acceptability of traditional fermented foods may be improved through the use of starter cultures. There has been a trend recently to isolate wild-type strains from traditional products for use as starter cultures in food fermentation. A total of 74 bacterial strains and 21 yeast strains were isolated from a cassava mash fermentation process in a rural village in Benin, West Africa. These strains were assessed, together with 26 strains isolated at the CSIR from cassava samples sent from Benin previously, for phenotypic and technological properties. Twenty four presumptive lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were selected for further phenotypic, genotypic and technological characterization during a research visit to the BFE (now Max Rubner Institute of Nutrition and Food). After assessment, the strains VE 20, VE 36, VE 65b, VE 77 and VE 82 were chosen for further study as starter cultures. These L. plantarum strains were chosen on the basis of predominance and possession of suitable technological properties. The investigation of this study was complemented by further, similar studies on further Gari isolates in Germany by the BFE. That study was done independently from this study, but both studies served to select potential starter cultures for cassava fermentation for the production of Gari, as this was the common goal of the project. Thus, a wider final selection of potential starter cultures was decided on at the project level and this selection was further tested in fermentation experiments. A total of 17 strains were grown in optimized media in 2 L fermenters. These strains were freeze-dried and thereafter tested in lab-scale cassava mash fermentation trials. xiii The strains performed well in the small scale bucket fermentations. There was a rapid acidification evidenced by the increase in titratable acidity, ranging from 1.1 to 1.3 % at 24 hours, and 1.3 to 1.6 % at 48 hours. The effect of the starter was obvious in that it lowered the pH much faster and to lower levels than the control. It appeared that both the processing and starter culture addition played a role in the removal of cyanide during processing of the cassava into Gari. This was evident from the lower cyanide values obtained for fermentations that included starter cultures. The study also showed that especially the L. plantarum group strains could be produced as starter cultures at lower costs than compared to L. fermentum, W. paramesenteroides or L. mesenteroides strains. Overall the results of this study were crucial for the project in showing that a starter culture which is easy and economical to produce and which has the desired attributes is a feasible possibility for application in the field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Calvince Anino ◽  
Arnold Onyango ◽  
Samuel Imathiu ◽  
Julius Maina

Fermented foods have in recent times attracted consumer interest mainly due to perceived health benefits of probiotic microorganisms. This study characterized changes in the concentrations of selected B-complex vitamins and oligosaccharides of common bean milk during fermentation by a common dairy starter culture, YF L-903 (Streptococcus thermophilus + Lactobacillus Bulgaricus subs Debulgaricus), and three probiotic cultures namely ABT (Lactobacillus acidophilus La-5 + Bifidobacterium animalis Bb-12 + Streptococcus thermophilus), Yoba (Lactobacillus rhamnosus yoba + Streptococcus thermophilus), and Yoba Fiti (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR1 + Streptococcus thermophilus). Bean milk was prepared from three common bean varieties. It was found that, apart from thiamine (vitamin B1) and riboflavin (vitamin B2), fermentation with each of the mixed cultures caused significant increase in the vitamin B complex. Significant reductions (p<0.05) in the oligosaccharides concentration of the bean milks were observed upon fermentation. Highest reduction in the oligosaccharide sugars of 77.8% was found in milk from pinto bean variety fermented with ABT culture. These findings suggest that LAB probiotic cultures have a potential for improving biosynthesis of vitamins and removal of the verbascose, stachyose and raffinose oligosaccharides, thus making the product more digestible and the nutrients more bioavailable.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 1534
Author(s):  
Andrea Comasio ◽  
Simon Van Kerrebroeck ◽  
Henning Harth ◽  
Fabienne Verté ◽  
Luc De Vuyst

Microbial strains for starter culture-initiated sourdough productions are commonly isolated from a fermenting flour–water mixture. Yet, starter culture strains isolated from matrices other than sourdoughs could provide the dough with interesting metabolic properties and hence change the organoleptic properties of the concomitant breads. Furthermore, the selection of sourdough starter cultures does not need to be limited to lactic acid bacteria (LAB), as other food-grade microorganisms are sometimes found in sourdoughs. Therefore, different strains belonging to LAB, acetic acid bacteria (AAB), and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) that originated from different fermented food matrices (fermenting cocoa pulp-bean mass, fermented sausage, and water kefir), were examined as to their prevalence in a wheat sourdough ecosystem during 72-h fermentations. Limosilactobacillus fermentum IMDO 222 (fermented cocoa pulp-bean mass isolate) and Latilactobacillus sakei CTC 494 (fermented sausage isolate) seemed to be promising candidates as sourdough starter culture strains, as were the AAB strains Acetobacter pasteurianus IMDO 386B and Gluconobacter oxydans IMDO A845 (both isolated from fermented cocoa pulp-bean mass), due to their competitiveness in the wheat flour-water mixtures. Wheat breads made with G. oxydans IMDO A845 sourdoughs were significantly darker than reference wheat breads.


Author(s):  
Juan García-Díez ◽  
Cristina Saraiva

Starter cultures can be defined as preparations with a large number of cells that include a single type or a mixture of two or more microorganisms that are added to foods in order to take advantage of the compounds or products derived from their metabolism or enzymatic activity. In foods from animal origin, starter cultures are widely used in the dairy industry for cheese, yogurt and other fermented dairy products, in the meat industry, mainly for sausage manufacture, and in the fishery industry for fermented fish products. Usually, microorganisms selected as starter culture are isolated from the native microbiota of traditional products since they are well adapted to the environmental conditions of food processing and are responsible to confer specific appearance, texture, aroma and flavour characteristics. The main function of starter cultures used in food from animal origin, mainly represented by lactic acid bacteria, consists in the rapid production of lactic acid, which causes a reduction in pH, inhibiting the growth of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms, increasing the shelf-life of fermented foods. Also, production of other metabolites (e.g., lactic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, benzoic acid, hydrogen peroxide or bacteriocins) improves the safety of foods. Since starter cultures have become the predominant microbiota, it allows food processors to control the fermentation processes, excluding the undesirable flora and decreasing hygienic and manufacturing risks due to deficiencies of microbial origin. Also, stater cultures play an important role in the chemical safety of fermented foods by reduction of biogenic amine and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons contents. The present review discusses how starter cultures contribute to improve the microbiological and chemical safety in products of animal origin, namely meat, dairy and fishery products.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mellisa Nokulunga Jula

Cereal fermented products are popular in developing countries, especially in Asia and Africa, because of their unique taste and fulfilment. Throughout the years, they have played a vital part in bringing up infants as part of their weaning foods and contributing to the daily diet of many households. Food fortification and supplementation of cereal grains with inexpensive readily available legumes, which have higher protein content compared to cereals may lead to a potential decrease in protein-energy malnutrition. Underutilised and indigenous crops such as Bambara groundnut can be in incorporated into the fermentation of cereal fermented foods, such as injera. In this study, injera was prepared by substituting only 9% and 12% Bambara groundnut flour and comparing them with the traditionally fermented original control, which is injera made from only tef flour. The first part of the study was to identify and characterise the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeast involved in the spontaneous fermentation of traditional tef-injera and the newly developed injera fortified with Bambara groundnut (which contains 12% Bambara groundnuts) at different fermentation intervals of 0, 24, 48, and 72 hour. A total of 70 LAB isolates and 30 yeast isolates were identified from both fermentations using rep-PCR fingerprinting followed by sequencing the 16S rRNA gene and the D1/D2 region of the 26S rRNA gene. Weissella confusa, Lc. lactis and Lb. curvatus predominated in both fermentations at different intervals of the fermentation. The second part of the study investigated the effectiveness of the isolated LAB starter cultures on the production of injera and injera fortified with Bambara groundnut after which their physicochemical properties were evaluated. There was a significant increase (p<0.05) in titratable acidity and a significant decrease in pH to below four within 24 hours; recorded for samples inoculated with LAB starter cultures when compared to samples fermented without inoculation. The third and fourth parts of the study investigated the proximate composition and storage stability of the injera samples. Injera fortified with 12% Bambara groundnut + LAB culture had a significantly high (p<0.05) protein of 23.21%, the lowest protein content being Tef injera at 7.35%. The protein digestibility of Tef injera increased with the addition of Bambara groundnut and LAB starter culture. The digestibility of protein increased from 40% for Tef injera to 80% for injera fortified with 12% Bambara flour + LAB culture. There was no significant increase (p >0.05) in the amino acid content after the addition of Bambara flour + LAB cultures; the amino acid concentrations were slightly lower than the standard concentration recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organisation/World Health Organisation for adults. Injera samples fortified with Bambara groundnut flour and inoculated with lactic acid starter cultures were stable with microbial counts ranging from 4.42 log cfu/g to 4.68 log cfu/g for TPC at 4 ̊C, yeast and mould, coliforms and aerobic spore formers were not detected in all the samples from day 0 to day three upon storage. Higher counts had been perceived at room temperature ranging from 4.60 log cfu/g to 7.53 log cfu/g for moulds and 4.90 log cfu/g to 9.26 cfu/g for TPC; coliforms were detected in one tef injera only ranging from 4.48 log cfu/g to 6.16 log cfu/g and no detection of aerobic spore formers in all samples. Refrigeration temperatures effectively maintained the microbiological quality of injera for three days. The nutritional quality, distinctively the protein content increased with the addition of Bambara groundnut flour and through the use of lactic acid bacteria as a starter culture This will potentially pave the way for the commercialisation of injera in the industry with the use of LAB starter culture to ensure a fast and continuous supply of fresh injera that is in high demand.


Food Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 964-975
Author(s):  
A.S.L. Sulabo ◽  
M.E.L. Villasanta ◽  
K.G. Hermo ◽  
R.A. Lascano ◽  
L.S. Collado ◽  
...  

Development of an active starter culture is essential in the production of safe and highquality fermented foods. Freeze-drying is an effective microbial cell immobilization technology intended to produce active and stable starter cultures for long-term storage. To determine the influence of various drying medium formulations with mung bean powder and disaccharides on the viability of L. plantarum S20 during freeze-drying and subsequent storage at 6±2°C and 30±1°C, three treatments of drying medium consisting of mung bean powder without disaccharides (MBP), MBP with 5% (w/v) trehalose (MBP+T), and MBP with 5% (w/v) sucrose (MBP+T) were evaluated. Results showed that L. plantarum S20 viability after freeze-drying ranged from 9.56 to 10.03 log (CFU/g) with viability loss ranging from 0.20 to 0.51 log (CFU/g), with MBP being the least effective (p<0.05) in minimizing viability loss. Supplementing MBP with either 5% sucrose or 5% trehalose improved (p<0.05) survival of freeze-dried L. plantarum S20; and both disaccharides exhibit similar (p>0.05) cryoprotective effects on L. plantarum S20 during freeze-drying and subsequent storage. Storage at 6±2°C for 180 days resulted in significant decreases of 2.15, 2.17, and 3.27 log (CFU/g) in L. plantarum S20 population in MBP+T, MBP+S, and MBP, respectively. A more drastic decline [>6.0 Log (CFU/g)] in L. plantarum S20 population was observed in freeze-dried culture stored at 30±1°C for 60 days. Fermentation characteristics of freeze-dried L. plantarum S20 in mung bean slurry were also determined. Freeze-dried L. plantarum S20 in MBP with 5% (w/v) sucrose was able to acidify mung bean slurry from pH 6.8 to pH 3.8 after 8 hrs with maximum LAB population of 9.2 log (CFU/mL). Acidification of mung bean slurry by fresh culture (non-freeze-dried) on the other hand was relatively slower where pH dropped from 6.8 to pH 3.72 after 24 hrs. Current work suggested that lyophilized L. plantarum S20 could be used as a starter culture for mung bean-based fermentations but further research on this area is needed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (12) ◽  
pp. 59-63
Author(s):  
O.I. Parakhina ◽  
◽  
M.N. Lokachuk ◽  
L.I. Kuznetsova ◽  
E.N. Pavlovskaya ◽  
...  

The research was carried out within the framework of the theme of state assignment № 0593–2019–0008 «To develop theoretical foundations for creating composite mixtures for bakery products using physical methods of exposure that ensure homogeneity, stability of mixtures and bioavailability of nutrients, to optimize diets population of Russia». The data on the species belonging of new strains of lactic acid bacteria and yeast isolated from samples of good quality gluten-free starter cultures are presented. A comparative assessment of the antagonistic and acid-forming activity of strains of lactic acid bacteria and the fermentative activity of yeast was carried out. The composition of microbial compositions from selected strains of LAB and yeast was developed. The influence of the starter culture on the new microbial composition on the physicochemical, organoleptic indicators of the bread quality and resistance to mold and ropy-disease was investigated.


Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 1203
Author(s):  
Huan Zhang ◽  
Jianhang Xu ◽  
Qian Chen ◽  
Hui Wang ◽  
Baohua Kong

As functional starter cultures and potential probiotics, the ability of lactic acid bacteria to resist oxidative stress is essential to maintain viability and functional properties. This study investigates the effects of H2O2 at different concentrations (0, 1, 2, and 3 mM) on the physiological, morphological, and antioxidant properties of Pediococcus pentosaceus R1 and Lactobacillus fermentum R6 isolated from Harbin dry sausages. The increase in H2O2 concentration induced a significant increase in reactive oxygen species and a decrease in intracellular ATP levels (p < 0.05). Based on scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and electric conductivity analysis, H2O2 stress caused cell deformation, the destruction of cell membrane integrity, partial loss of the cytoplasm, and an increase in the cell conductivity of both strains. H2O2 stress with 1 mM or 2 mM concentrations could effectively improve the scavenging rates of free radicals, the activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxide, and the total antioxidant capacity of both strains (p < 0.05). In conclusion, an appropriate oxidative stress contributed to the activation of the antioxidant defense system of both strains, conferred strains a better effect in inhibiting the oxidation of fermented foods, and improved the health of the host.


1995 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. ANJAN REDDY ◽  
ELMER H. MARTH

Three different split lots of Cheddar cheese curd were prepared with added sodium chloride (NaCl) potassium chloride (KCl) or mixtures of NaCl/KCl (2:1 1:1 1:2 and 3:4 all on wt/wt basis) to achieve a final salt concentration of 1.5 or 1.75%. At intervals during ripening at 3±1°C samples were plated with All-Purpose Tween (APT) and Lactobacillus Selection (LBS) agar. Isolates were obtained of bacteria that predominated on the agar media. In the first trial (Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis plus L. lactis subsp. cremoris served as starter cultures) L. lactis subsp.lactis Lactobacillus casei and other lactobacilli were the predominant bacteria regardless of the salting treatment Received by the cheese. In the second trial (L. lactis subsp. lactis served as the starter culture) unclassified lactococci L. lactis subsp. lactis unclassified lactobacilli and L. casei predominated regardless of the salting treatment given the cheese. In the third trial (L. lactis subsp. cremoris served as the starter culture) unclassified lactococci unclassified lactobacilli L. casei and Pediococcus cerevisiae predominated regardless of the salting treatment applied to the cheese Thus use of KCl to replace some of the NaCl for salting cheese had no detectable effect on the kinds of lactic acid bacteria that developed in ripening Cheddar cheese.


Beverages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Iattici ◽  
Martina Catallo ◽  
Lisa Solieri

Beer is a fermented beverage with a history as old as human civilization. Ales and lagers are by far the most common beers; however, diversification is becoming increasingly important in the brewing market and the brewers are continuously interested in improving and extending the range of products, especially in the craft brewery sector. Fermentation is one of the widest spaces for innovation in the brewing process. Besides Saccharomyces cerevisiae ale and Saccharomyces pastorianus lager strains conventionally used in macro-breweries, there is an increasing demand for novel yeast starter cultures tailored for producing beer styles with diversified aroma profiles. Recently, four genetic engineering-free approaches expanded the genetic background and the phenotypic biodiversity of brewing yeasts and allowed novel costumed-designed starter cultures to be developed: (1) the research for new performant S. cerevisiae yeasts from fermented foods alternative to beer; (2) the creation of synthetic hybrids between S. cerevisiae and Saccharomyces non-cerevisiae in order to mimic lager yeasts; (3) the exploitation of evolutionary engineering approaches; (4) the usage of non-Saccharomyces yeasts. Here, we summarized the pro and contra of these approaches and provided an overview on the most recent advances on how brewing yeast genome evolved and domestication took place. The resulting correlation maps between genotypes and relevant brewing phenotypes can assist and further improve the search for novel craft beer starter yeasts, enhancing the portfolio of diversified products offered to the final customer.


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