Effect of short ageing on lees on the mannoprotein content, aromatic profile, and sensorial character of white wines.

In Albariño white wines, aging of wines on lees is a technique not used or only used empirically by some producers to obtain a distinctive character in the final wine. This study analyzes the influence of a short aging on lees on the chemical and sensorial parameters of this young white wine. Albariño grape must was inoculated with a locally selected yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae 1) and the effect of a short aging on lees was studied during different times (10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 d). Mannoprotein content and the aromatic profile were determined and a sensorial analysis of the wines was conducted. Results showed that aging time was correlated with the concentration of some key aroma compounds and mannoproteins in Albariño wines. The best sensorial character was obtained in wines aged 20 d on lees. Further aging times decreased the sensorial quality of Albariño wine and modified its volatile profile and mannoprotein concentration.

Tannic acid-dependent modulation of selected Lactobacillus plantarum traits linked to gastrointestinal survival.

BACKGROUND: Owing to its antimicrobial properties dietary tannins may alter the functional efficacy of probiotic lactobacilli in the gastrointestinal (GI)-tract influencing their growth, viability and molecular adaptation to the intestinal environment. METHODS AND FINDINGS: The effects of tannic acid on Lactobacillus plantarum WCFS1 were studied by in vitro growth monitoring and visualizing the morphological alteration on the cell wall using transmission electron microscopy. Growth upon tannic acid was characterized by dose-dependent reductions of initial viable counts and extended lag phases. Lag phase-cells growing upon 0.5 mM tannic acid were abnormally shaped and experienced disturbance on the cell wall such as roughness, occasional leakage and release of cell debris, but resumed growth later at tannic acid concentrations high as 2.5 mM. To gain insight on how the response to tannic acid influenced the molecular adaptation of L. plantarum to the GI-tract conditions, gene expression of selected biomarkers for GI-survival was assessed by RT-qPCR on cDNA templates synthetized from mRNA samples obtained from cells treated with 0.5 or 2 mM tannic acid. Tannic acid-dependent gene induction was confirmed for selected genes highly expressed in the gut or with confirmed roles in GI-survival. No differential expression was observed for the pbp2A gene, a biomarker negatively related with GI-survival. However PBP2A was not labeled by Bocillin FL, a fluorescent dye-labeled penicillin V derivative, in the presence of tannic acid which suggests for enhanced GI-survival reportedly associated with the inactivation of this function. CONCLUSIONS: Probiotic L. plantarum WCFS1 is able to overcome the toxic effects of tannic acid. This dietary constituent modulates molecular traits linked to the adaptation to intestinal environment in ways previously shown to enhance GI-survival.

Use of recA gene sequence analysis for the identification of Staphylococcus equorum strains predominant on dry-cured hams.

Spanish dry-cured ham is an uncooked meat product highly appreciated due to its characteristics flavour. In this study, we examined the accuracy of biochemical tests and 16S rDNA sequencing in the identification of 56 staphylococcal strains isolated during industrial Spanish dry-cured ham processes. Important differences were observed comparing genotypic and phenotypic data. Staphylococcus xylosus was the prevalent species identified by biochemical methods (87.5%), however, sequencing of the 16S rDNA resulted in an unambiguous identification of Staphylococcus equorum (73.2%) and Staphylococcus vitulinus (8.9%) strains. Reliable identification of meat staphylococci, mainly among S. xylosus and S. equorum strains could be also achieved by means of recA gene sequence comparison. Two degenerate primers previously described for lactic acid bacteria were used to amplify an internal fragment of the recA gene. This fragment was amplified from twelve staphylococcal type strains representing frequent meat species. The results indicated that recA sequencing is an adequate method to discriminate among meat staphylococci. In addition, S. xylosus and S. equorum strains could be more accurately discriminated by recA sequencing than 16S rDNA or sodA sequencing. The S. equorum sequence diversity showed at the intra-species level by recA gene sequencing confirmed the high heterogeneity described among S. equorum strains.

Hydrolysis of fish oil by hyperactivated Rhizomucor miehei lipase immobilized by multipoint anion exchange.

Rhizomucor miehei lipase (RML) is greatly hyperactivated (around 20- to 25-fold toward small substrates) in the presence of sucrose laurate. Hyperactivation appears to be an intramolecular process because it is very similar for soluble enzymes and covalently immobilized derivatives. The hyperactivated enzyme was immobilized (in the presence of sucrose laurate) on cyanogen bromide-activated Sepharose (very mild covalent immobilization through the amino terminal residue), on glyoxyl Sepharose (intense multipoint covalent immobilization through the region with the highest amount of Lys residues), and on different anion exchangers (by multipoint anionic exchange through the region with the highest density of negative charges). Covalent immobilization does not promote the fixation of the hyperactivated enzyme, but immobilization on Sepharose Q retains the hyperactivated enzyme even in the absence of a detergent. The hydrolysis of fish oils by these hyperactivated enzyme derivatives was sevenfold faster than by covalently immobilized derivatives and three and a half times faster than by the enzyme hyperactivated on octyl-Sepharose. The open structure of the hyperactivated lipase is fairly exposed to the medium, and no steric hindrance should interfere with the hydrolysis of large substrates. These new hyperactivated derivatives seem to be more suitable for hydrolysis of oils by RML immobilized inside porous supports. In addition, the hyperactivated derivatives are fairly stable against heat and organic cosolvents.

Protein hydrolysis by immobilized and stabilized trypsin.

The preparation of novel immobilized and stabilized derivatives of trypsin is reported here. The new derivatives preserved 80% of the initial catalytic activity toward synthetic substrates [benzoyl-arginine p-nitroanilide (BAPNA)] and were 50,000-fold more thermally stable than the diluted soluble enzyme in the absence of autolysis. Trypsin was immobilized on highly activated glyoxyl-Sepharose following a two-step immobilization strategy: (a) first, a multipoint covalent immobilization at pH 8.5 that only involves low pK(a) amino groups (e.g., those derived from the activation of trypsin from trypsinogen) is performed and (b) next, an additional alkaline incubation at pH 10 is performed to favor an intense, additional multipoint immobilization between the high concentration of proximate aldehyde groups on the support surface and the high pK(a) amino groups at the enzyme surface region that participated in the first immobilization step. Interestingly, the new, highly stable trypsin derivatives were also much more active in the proteolysis of high molecular weight proteins when compared with a nonstabilized derivative prepared on CNBr-activated Sepharose. In fact, all the proteins contained a cheese whey extract had been completely proteolyzed after 6 h at pH 9 and 50°C, as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Under these experimental conditions, the immobilized biocatalysts preserve more than 90% of their initial activity after 20 days. Analysis of the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the best immobilized trypsin derivative showed a surface region containing two amino terminal groups and five lysine (Lys) residues that may be responsible for this novel and interesting immobilization and stabilization. Moreover, this region is relatively far from the active site of the enzyme, which could explain the good results obtained for the hydrolysis of high-molecular weight proteins.

Synthesis of propyl gallate by transesterification of tannic acid in aqueous media catalysed by immobilised derivatives of tannase from Lactobacillus plantarum.

Immobilised derivatives of tannase from Lactobacillus plantarum were able to catalyse the transesterification of tannic acid by using moderate concentrations of 1-propanol in aqueous media. Transesterification of tannic acid was very similar to transesterification of methyl gallate. The synthetic yield depended on the pH and concentration of 1-propanol, although it did not vary much when using 30% or 50% 1-propanol. Synthetic yields of 45% were obtained with 30% of 1-propanol at pH 5.0. The product was chromatographically pure, and the reaction by-product was 55% pure gallic acid. On the other hand, immobilised tannase was fairly stable under optimal reaction conditions.

Selective adsorption of small proteins on large-pore anion exchangers coated with medium size proteins.

A new anion exchanger support has been designed for the selective adsorption of small proteins. This has been achieved activating an aminated support with glutaraldehyde and further coating the support surface with bovine serum albumin (BSA). In this support, "wells" are generated by two neighborhoods BSA molecules, on the bottom of those "wells" glutaraldehyde groups are exposed out ready to react with small molecules that have a size small enough to be accommodated between two BSA molecules on the pre-existing support. However, the BSA surface was not inert enough adsorbing many proteins, thereby reducing the selectivity of the system. A further solution was coating the immobilized BSA molecules with dextran, reducing the adsorption of protein on the BSA surface. This new matrix has been evaluated in the selective adsorption of the very small beta-lactoglobulins and alpha-lactalbumin from dairy whey, achieving the selective adsorption of both small proteins while other larger proteins from dairy whey remained in the supernatant. Moreover, a protein crude extract has been offered to the new matrix, and only small proteins could be adsorbed on the support (as probed by gel filtration). Thus this amino-glutaraldehyde-BSA-dextran-Sepharose is a matrix that may be used to selectively ionically adsorb proteins that were smaller than BSA (62 kDa). This strategy may be used for any other kind of adsorbing groups (chelating agents, boronic acid, etc.), or using proteins with different sizes to coat the support, designing tailor-made supports that may permit the fractioning of proteins following their sizes and by adsorption/desorption on different matrices.

Multilocus sequence typing of oenological Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains.

This study describes the application of a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis for molecular discrimination at the strain level of Spanish wine yeast strains. The discrimination power of MLST is compared to mitochondrial RFLP analysis. Fragments of the ADP1, ACC1, RPN2, GLN4, and ALA1 genes were amplified by PCR from chromosomal DNA of 18 wine Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. Ten polymorphic sites were found in the five loci analyzed showing 13 different genotypes, with 11 of them represented by only one strain. RFLP analysis of the same 18 wine yeast strains showed seventeen different mitochondrial patterns. Phylogenetic relationships among the strains analyzed, inferred by MLST data, showed wine isolates of S. cerevisiae as a rather homogeneous group. The discrimination potential of mitochondrial RFLP analysis was superior to the MLST scheme used in this work. However, MLST analysis allowed an easy construction of reliable phylogenetic trees. MLST analysis offers the possibility of typing wine S. cerevisiae strains simultaneously to the study of the genetic relationship among them.

El Laboratorio de Bacteriología y Serología de la Residencia de Estudiantes de Madrid / The Bacteriology and Serology Laboratory at the Student's Residence in Madrid

Después de que el genial químico francés Louis Pasteurestableciese la relación causa efecto entre la levadura enológicay el vino, y demostrase que ciertas enfermedadesinfecciosas eran producidas por microbios, la microbiologíase abrió camino entre la profesión médica en relación con laanatomía patológica y la histología. Se resume la puesta enmarcha del Laboratorio de Bacteriología de la Residenciade Estudiantes de Madrid, con una semblanza de quien fuerasu director fundador, el médico Paulino Suárez, y dequienes fueron sus principales colaboradores en el desarrollode la institución, la mayor parte de ellos también médicos.La puesta en marcha de este organismo supone unacontribución al desarrollo de la microbiología por parte dela Junta de ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas(AU)

Pasteur’s work demonstrating the fermentation of wineby yeasts and the causative effect of microbes in some infectiousdiseases, led to the establishment of microbiology as adiscipline separate from pathology and histology. The settingup of the bacteriology laboratory at the Student’s Residencein Madrid is described, together with brief biographiesof the founding director, Paulino Suárez, and of thepeople principally responsible for the development of theinstitution, most of whom were physicians. The creation ofthis laboratory by the Junta de ampliación de Estudios eInvestigaciones Científicas (Board for the Advancement ofScientific Research) contributed to the progress of microbiologyin Spain(AU)

Gene cloning, expression, and functional characterization of an ornithine decarboxylase protein from Serratia liquefaciens IFI65.

Putrescine has a negative effect on health and is also used as an indicator of quality on meat products. We investigated the genes involved in putrescine production by Serratia liquefaciens IFI65 isolated from a spoiled Spanish dry-cured ham. We report here the genetic organization of its ornithine decarboxylase encoding region. The 5506-bp DNA region showed the presence of three complete and two partial open reading frames. Putative functions have been assigned to several gene products by sequence comparison with proteins included in the databases. The second gene putatively coded for an ornithine decarboxylase. The functionality of this decarboxylase has been experimentally demonstrated by complementation to an E. coli defective mutant. Based on sequence comparisons of some enterobacterial ornithine decarboxylase regions, we have elaborated a hypothetical pathway for the acquisition of putrescine biosynthetic genes in some Enterobacteriaceae strains.

In vitro removal of ochratoxin A by wine lactic acid bacteria.

A study was carried out to determine the in vitro interaction between ochratoxin A (OTA) and wine lactic acid bacteria (LAB). Fifteen strains belonging to five relevant oenological LAB species were grown in liquid synthetic culture medium containing OTA. The portion of OTA removed during the bacterial growth was 8 to 28%. The OTA removed from the supernatants was partially recovered (31 to 57%) from the bacterial pellet. Cell-free extracts of three representative strains were produced by disrupting cells in a French pressure cell. The ability of crude cell-free extracts to degrade OTA was studied. OTA was not degraded by cell-free extracts of wine LAB strains, and no degradation products of OTA were detected in the high-performance liquid chromatograms of the methanol extract of the bacterial pellet. On the basis of these results, we conclude that OTA removal by wine LAB is a cell-binding phenomenon. The chemistry and the molecular basis of OTA binding to wine LAB remains unknown.

Screening of biogenic amine production by coagulase-negative staphylococci isolated during industrial Spanish dry-cured ham processes.

The potential to produce biogenic amines was investigated for 56 coagulase-negative staphylococci isolated during industrial Spanish dry-cured ham processes. The presence of biogenic amines from bacterial cultures was determined by thin-layer chromatography. The percentage of strains that decarboxylated amino acids was very low (3.6%). The only staphylococci with aminogenic capacity were an histamine-producing Staphylococcus capitis strain, and a Staphylococcus lugdunensis strain that simultaneously produced putrescine and cadaverine. In both strains, PCR was used to confirm the presence of the genes encoding the amino acid decarboxylases responsible for the synthesis of these amines. This study reveals that production of biogenic amines is not a widely distributed property among the staphylococci isolated from Spanish dry-cured hams.

PCR detection of foodborne bacteria producing the biogenic amines histamine, tyramine, putrescine, and cadaverine.

This study describes an easy PCR method for the detection of foodborne bacteria that potentially produce histamine, tyramine, putrescine, and cadaverine. Synthetic oligonucleotide pairs for the specific detection of the gene coding for each group of bacterial histidine, tyrosine, ornithine, or lysine decarboxylases were designed. Under the conditions used in this study, the assay yielded fragments of 372 and 531 bp from histidine decarboxylase-encoding genes, a 825-bp fragment from tyrosine decarboxylases, fragments of 624 and 1,440 bp from ornithine decarboxylases, and 1,098- and 1,185-bp fragments from lysine decarboxylases. This is the first PCR method for detection of cadaverine-producing bacteria. The method was successfully applied to several biogenic amine-producing bacterial strains.

Effect of accelerated autolysis of yeast on the composition and foaming properties of sparkling wines elaborated by a champenoise method.

Five mutants (obtained by UV mutagenesis) and the parent strain were selected to produce sparkling wines following the traditional or champenoise method. The wines were aged with the yeast for 9 months, with samples being taken each month for analytical and sensory determinations. The wines elaborated with mutant strain IFI473I demonstrated an accelerated release of protein, amino acids, and polysaccharides. An analysis of the secreted polysaccharides revealed that mannose was the major sugar present. The effects of the products released by yeasts on the foaming properties of the wines were determined by both sensory and instrumental analysis. In all cases, the wines elaborated with mutant strain IFI473I showed improved foaming properties as compared to wines fermented without this strain. Similar results were obtained at a decreased aging time of 6 months, thereby confirming the capacity of IFI473I strain to carry out an accelerated autolysis. These results demonstrate that mutant strain IFI473I can significantly reduce production times of high-quality sparkling wines.

Overexpression of csc1-1. A plausible strategy to obtain wine yeast strains undergoing accelerated autolysis.

The potential of several alternative genetic engineering based strategies in order to accelerate Saccharomyces cerevisiae autolysis for wine production has been studied. Both constitutively autophagic and defective in autophagy strains have been studied. Although both alternatives lead to impaired survival under starvation conditions, only constitutively autophagic strains, carrying a multicopy plasmid with the csc1-1 allele under the control of the TDH3 promoter, undergo accelerated autolysis in the experimental conditions tested. Fermentation performance is impaired in the autolytic strains, but industrial strains carrying the above-mentioned construction are still able to complete second fermentation of a model base wine. We suggest the construction of industrial yeasts showing a constitutive autophagic phenotype as a way to obtain second fermentation yeast strains undergoing accelerated autolysis.

Evidence for yeast autophagy during simulation of sparkling wine aging: a reappraisal of the mechanism of yeast autolysis in wine.

Yeast autolysis is the source of several molecules responsible for the quality of wines aged in contact with yeast cells. However, the mechanisms of yeast autolysis during wine aging are not completely understood. All descriptions of yeast autolysis in enological conditions emphasize the disturbance of cell organization as the starting event in the internal digestion of the cell, while no reference to autophagy is found in wine-related literature. By using yeast mutants defective in the autophagic or the Cvt pathways we have demonstrated that autophagy does take place in wine production conditions. This finding has implications for the genetic improvement of yeasts for accelerated autolysis.

A rapid and inexpensive method for the determination of biogenic amines from bacterial cultures by thin-layer chromatography.

This study describes a simple, rapid, and inexpensive method to determine the ability to produce biogenic amines (BA) by bacteria in liquid culture media containing the corresponding amino acid precursor. In view of their role as starters in food fermentation, BA formation by these microorganisms has to be taken into consideration by selecting appropriate strains. For the standardization of the assay pure BA were mixed. The method avoids a prior extraction step of the amines and allows the separation and identification of the amines histamine, tyramine, putrescine, and phenylethylamine using thin-layer chromatography. The method was successfully applied to several BA-producer bacterial strains. This method constitutes a simple solution to the previous reports describing false-positive reactions in routine screening procedures generally involving the use of a differential medium containing a pH indicator.

Selective and mild adsorption of large proteins on lowly activated immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography matrices. Purification of multimeric thermophilic enzymes overexpressed in Escherichia coli.

A strategy to selectively adsorb large proteins on immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography supports is presented. It is based on the fact that large proteins have a large surface that permits the long distance interaction with groups placed quite far apart (very dispersed onto the support surface) in the support, therefore, even using lowly activated supports, these proteins may be able to yield multiple interactions with the support, which is not possible for smaller proteins. This has been shown using a crude extract from Escherichia coli, where only large proteins were adsorbed on supports having 0.25 micromol of metallic groups/g of support. Then, these lowly activated supports have been used for purifying multimeric enzymes from thermophilic organisms (alpha- and beta-galactosidases from Thermus sp. strain T2) cloned and over-expressed in mesophilic ones. A previous heating step of the crude extract destroyed the quaternary structure of all multimeric enzymes from the host (E. coli). Thus, the only large protein remaining in the supernatant of this heated extract are the cloned multimeric thermophilic enzymes, permitting their very simple purification by using only one chromatographic step.

A simple strategy for the purification of large thermophilic proteins overexpressed in mesophilic microorganisms: application to multimeric enzymes from Thermus sp. strain T2 expressed in Escherichia coli.

The heating of protein preparations of mesophilic organism (e.g., E. coli) produces the obliteration of all soluble multimeric proteins from this organism. In this way, if a multimeric enzyme from a thermophilic microorganism is expressed in these mesophilic hosts, the only large protein remaining soluble in the preparation after heating is the thermophilic enzyme. These large proteins may be then selectively adsorbed on lowly activated anionic exchangers, enabling their full purification in just these two simple steps. This strategy has been applied to the purification of an alpha-galactosidase and a beta-galactosidase from Thermus sp. strain T2, both expressed in E. coli, achieving the almost full purification of both enzymes in only these two simple steps. This very simple strategy seems to be of general applicability to the purification of any thermophilic multimeric enzyme expressed in a mesophilic host.

Cloning of the authentic bovine gene encoding pepsinogen a and its expression in microbial cells.

Bovine pepsin is the second major proteolytic activity of rennet obtained from young calves and is the main protease when it is extracted from adult animals, and it is well recognized that the proteolytic specificity of this enzyme improves the sensory properties of cheese during maturation. Pepsin is synthesized as an inactive precursor, pepsinogen, which is autocatalytically activated at the pH of calf abomasum. A cDNA coding for bovine pepsin was assembled by fusing the cDNA fragments from two different bovine expressed sequence tag libraries to synthetic DNA sequences based on the previously described N-terminal sequence of pepsinogen. The sequence of this cDNA clearly differs from the previously described partial bovine pepsinogen sequences, which actually are rabbit pepsinogen sequences. By cloning this cDNA in different vectors we produced functional bovine pepsinogen in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The recombinant pepsinogen is activated by low pH, and the resulting mature pepsin has milk-clotting activity. Moreover, the mature enzyme generates digestion profiles with alpha-, beta-, or kappa-casein indistinguishable from those obtained with a natural pepsin preparation. The potential applications of this recombinant enzyme include cheese making and bioactive peptide production. One remarkable advantage of the recombinant enzyme for food applications is that there is no risk of transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.