It has been frequently found that parts of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) strains produce proteinaceous antibacterial compounds, termed as bacteriocins. Many bacteriocins show great inhibitory ability against food pathogens and therefore attract special interest (Klaenhammer 1988; Ennahar et al. 1999; Cleveland et al. 2001; Yang et al. 2014). In the previous studies, we reported that Weissella hellenica 4–7, isolated from the traditional Taiwanese fermented food sian-sianzih (fermented clams), is capable of producing a novel bacteriocin, termed weissellicin L (Leong et al. 2013).
Several characteristics of weissellicin L, such as sensitivities to enzymes and heat, inhibition spectra, and partial amino acid sequences, have been previously reported (Leong et al. 2013). Results obtained from mass spectrometry analysis revealed the bacteriocin mass of weissellicin L was approximately 3205.64 Da. However, only 17 amino acid residues from N-terminal have been clarified. The objectives of this study are quite simple, 1) to clarify the full amino acid sequence of weissellicin L, and 2) to rapidly detect weissellicin L structural gene by using PCR amplification method.