3. Results
3.1. In vitro inhibition of P. larvae growth
Screening of the 208 LAB maintained at the NARO Institute of
Livestock and Grassland Science were performed against P. larvae
growth in vitro. Of these 208 LAB strains, nine exhibited strong
inhibitory effects and were selected for further analysis (Fig. 1
and Table 1). The 16S rRNA gene sequences of these strains were
determined and deposited in GenBank databases (AB671280–
AB671288). BLAST searches against sequences held in public databases
revealed that they belonged to the genera Enterococcus, Lactobacillus
and Weissella (Table 1). Of the nine strains selected,
strains N55 and N61 showed relatively strong inhibition effects
against P. larvae. The sources of N55 and N61 were vegetables pickled
with two separate batches of sake lees (Table 1). Strains N55
and N61 showed high similarities to Lactobacillus curvatus and
were confirmed by strain-specific PCR (Berthier and Ehrlich,
1999). Strain F13 isolated from Cucumbers pickled with nuka also
showed a strong inhibition activity against P. larvae growth in vitro.
Strains A52 and 577 were obtained from different sources of fermented
foods, but both showed high sequence similarities with
Weissella cibaria (Table 1)