3. Results and discussion
3.1. Isolation, screening and identification
Thirty-one (31) out of an assemblage of 152 bacterial isolates,
were Gram-positive and catalase-negative, hence were of LAB.
Three isolates among them, with satisfactory bile and acid tolerance and marked biomedical potentials (namely SB71, SB73 and
SB93) were identified as Lactobacillus casei according to 16S rRNA
gene sequence. Phylogenetic tree constructed by MEGA5.0 indicated phylogenetic similarity with other L. casei strains (Fig. 1).