The proteolytic system of lactic acid bacteria

Lactic acid bacteria are widely used throughout the world, empirically or deliberately, in the manufacturing of several food and feed stuffs, including milk products (such as cheese, butter, yoghurt, buttermilk, etc.), fermented vegetables (pickles, olives and sauerkraut), sausages, sourdough bread and silage, due to their ability to convert sugars into lactic acid. Of these, dairy products are of outstanding economic importance. Starter cultures used in the dairy industry are mixtures of carefully selected lactic acid bacteria which are added to the milk to fulfil the desired fermentation. Dairy starter cultures must reach high densities in milk in order to produce lactic acid at the required rates for manufacturing. Under these conditions, amino acids supply becomes limitant due to their scarce concentration in milk and to the auxotrophies shown by many starter bacteria. This implies the necessity of a proteolytic system, able to degrade the most abundant protein in milk, casein, into assimilable amino acids and peptides. Casein degradation and utilization require the concerted action of proteinases, peptidases and amino acid and peptide uptake systems. This whole set of enzymes constitutes the proteolytic system. In this article an overview of the recent biochemical and genetic data on the proteolytic system of lactic acid bacteria will be presented.