Comparative study of the pln locus of the quorum-sensing regulated bacteriocin-producing L. plantarum J51 strain

Lactobacillus plantarum J51 strain was isolated from a Rioja red wine and it showed bacteriocin activity against a wide range of lactic acid bacteria of oenological importance. These characteristics conferred L. plantarum J51 a high interest both in wine microbiology and in the study of bacteriocin production. In this work the bacteriocin production regulated under the “quorum-sensing” mechanism is observed and the pln locus of the bacteriocin-producing L. plantarum J51 is fully characterized. A 20,667 bp fragment was completely sequenced (GenBank accession number DQ340868), and showed five operons (plNC8βαc, plnLR-like, plnABCD, plnEFI, plnGHSTUVW) and a new region containing a putative operon with three new orfs that could encode a putative two-peptide bacteriocin.