Antibiotic Resistance of lactic Acid Bacteria Used in Russian Dairy and Probiotic Products

About 60 species of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are used or are suitable for the use by food industry. Most of them are used for the production of the well accepted by the consumers fermented food products, probiotic products and biologically active supplements. Majority of the technologically used microorganisms getting in the gastrointestinal tract with food can survive in it and there they interact with its commensal and transient micro flora, including horizontally transferring genes. However, there are very few informations about the spectrum of antibiotic resistance as well as about the nature of the detectable resistance of LAB used by food industry. This communication presents the results of antibiotic resistance study of 30 strains of Lactobacillus. The studied LAB strains were isolated from the food products consumed in Russian Federation. The sensitivity of the studied strains to antibiotics was tested by using agar diffusion method with paper disks containing doxycycline, streptomycin, gentamicin, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin, lincomycin, chloramphenicol, vancomycin, erythromycin, imipenem, ampicillin and cefalotin. Among the strains isolated from commercially prepared foods – 87.5 % were resistant to vancomycin, what may be due to gene transmission mechanism. The next phase of planed research will be devoted to molecular identification of genetic determinants resistance in food isolates of Lactobacilli