Lactic Acid Bacteria: Genetics, Metabolism and Applications

Foods fermented with lactic acid bacteria are an important part of the human diet. Lactic acid bacteria play an essential role in the preservation of food raw materials and contribute to the nutritional, organoleptic, and health properties of food products and animal feed. The importance of lactic acid bacteria in the production of foods throughout the world has resulted in a continued scientific interest in these micro-organisms over the last two decades by academic research groups as well as by industry. This research has resulted in a number of important scientific breakthroughs and has led to new applications. The most recent of these advances is the establishment of the complete genome sequences of a number of different lactic acid bacterial species.
To communicate and stimulate the research on lactic acid bacteria and their applications, a series of tri-annual symposia on lactic acid bacteria was started in 1983 under the auspices of the Netherlands Society for Microbiology (NVVM), which was later also supported by the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS). The aim of these state-of-the-art symposia is to offer a unique platform for universities, institutes, and industry in this area of biotechnology, to present recent work, to obtain information on new developments, and to exchange views with colleagues from all over the world on scientific progress and applications. The growing number of participants at these symposia has been a clear demonstration of the interest of the international industrial and scientific community in this area of research.
The 7th Symposium is based on a number of plenary lectures that review the scientific progress of the last years in the different areas of research on lactic acid bacteria, and which are documented in this special issue of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.

Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Lactic Acid Bacteria: Genetics, Metabolism and Applications, September 1-5, 2002, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands

Editorial.- Lactic acid bacteria: genetics, metabolism and applications.- Keynote Lecture.- The cell membrane and the struggle for life of lactic acid bacteria.- Genetics.- Discovering lactic acid bacteria by genomics.- Global control of sugar metabolism: a Gram-positive solution.- Comparative genomics of phages and prophages in lactic acid bacteria.- Gene regulation in Lactococcus lactis: the gap between predicted and characterized regulators.- Genetics Short Lectures.- Transcriptome analysis and related databases of Lactococcus lactis.- Genome plasticity in Lactococcus lactis.- Regulation of antimicrobial peptide production by autoinducer-mediated quorum sensing in lactic acid bacteria.- Metabolism.- Transporters and their roles in LAB cell physiology.- Lantibiotics produced by lactic acid bacteria: structure, function and applications.- Stress responses in lactic acid bacteria.- Metabolic engineering of lactic acid bacteria for the production of nutraceuticals.- Metabolism Short Lectures.- Experimental determination of control of glycolysis in Lactococcus lactis.- Metabolism of lactic acid bacteria studied by nuclear magnetic resonance.- Respiration capacity and consequences in Lactococcus lactis.- Glutamate dehydrogenase activity: a major criterion for the selection of flavour-producing lactic acid bacteria strains.- Applications.- Probiotics: an overview of beneficial effects.- Product development strategies for foods in the era of molecular biotechnology.- Bacteriophage-resistance systems in dairy starter strains: molecular analysis to application.- Applications Short Lectures.- In situ delivery of cytokines by genetically engineered Lactococcus lactis.- Anti-hypertensive activity of fermented dairy products containing biogenic peptides.- The Intestinal LABs.- Lactic acid bacteria in a changing legislative environment.- Genetically modified Streptococcus mutans for the prevention of dental caries.- Exploiting exopolysaccharides from lactic acid bacteria.