Pivotal role of Lactobacillus strains in improvement of soft cheese quality and inhibiting the growth of harmful and dangerous bacterial pathogens

Abstract

This study was carried out to determine the effect of addition of Lactobacillus bacteria to improve the soft cheese quality and inhibiting the microbial growth on cheese. Lactobacillus acidophilus DSM 20079 and Lactobacillus casei ss. casei DSM 20011 were studied in vitro for their probiotic properties through their antimicrobial activity. These strains were able to inhibit the growth of Escherichia coli O157 ATCC51659, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus cereus. Low salt soft cheese was manufactured, with acceptable organoleptic characters and prolonged shelf-life by using L. acidophilus and L. casei as bio preservative. The results cleared that, the addition of L. acidophilus or L. casei to the soft cheese improved the quality of the soft cheese through improvement of organoleptic characters of soft cheese such as appearance, body texture, flavour and extended soft cheese shelf-life through microbiological characteristics of manufactured cheese. The effect of the L. acidophilus is higher than the effect of L. casei than the control group. So we can use these strains as food preservative.