Effect of low temperature on stability of theta-type plasmids in Carnobacterium maltaromaticum

The heterologous production of useful peptides such as bacteriocins by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) has been studied for use in the biopreservation of foods. Recombinant plasmids can suffer drawbacks such as segregational instability affecting the production of these peptides in certain environments such as absence of selective pressure or low temperature. The link between growth temperature characteristics of parental strains and stability of theta-type plasmids at a low temperature was investigated. The growth of four parental strains at 4 degrees C and stability of five derivative theta-type plasmids transformed into Carnobacterium maltaromaticum UAL26 at 25 and 4 degrees C were determined. Two plasmids (pCD11 and pCaT) derived from psychrotrophic LAB and plasmid, pHW800, from Enterococcus faecium 226 with unknown growth temperature characteristics, had excellent stability when strains were grown at 4 degrees C. Plasmids (pTRKH2 and pUCB820) derived from LAB that did not grow at refrigeration temperatures were not stable at 4 degrees C. When a DNA fragment from pCD11 containing 22-bp repeats, a putative replication initiation site, and the gene for the RepA protein was inserted into pTRKH2, the resulting derivative plasmid was 100% stable at 4 degrees C.