title: Investigating hydrophobicity and the effect of exopolysaccharide on aggregation properties of dairy propionibacteria isolated from Turkish homemade cheeses.
abstract: Propionic acid bacteria have been used widely as starter cultures. However, their potential as probiotics has received little attention. The ability to auto- and coaggregate is a desirable property for probiotics in health-promoting foods. Therefore, in the current study, we assessed  the effect of exopolysaccharides produced by dairy propionibacteria strains on the aggregative and hydrophobicity properties. All propionibacteria strains tested showed auto- and coaggregation ability with Escherichia coli ATCC 11229, but the results were strain specific and dependent  on exopolysaccharides production and incubation conditions. In addition, propionibacteria strains tested were determined to be highly hydrophilic. Our results indicate that the ability to autoaggregate, together with cell-surface hydrophobicity and coaggregation abilities with an E. coli  strain, can be used for preliminary screening in order to identify potentially probiotic bacteria suitable for human or animal use.
authors.affiliation: University of Aksaray, Faculty of Science and Arts, Department of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, 68100 Aksaray, Turkey. derya_onal@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Derya Onal
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Darilmaz
authors.forename: Yavuz
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Beyatli
mesh_terms: D001422:Bacterial Adhesion / Q000502:physiology; D016667:Bacterial Capsules / Q000502:physiology*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D002611:Cheese / Q000382:microbiology*; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D019936:Probiotics; D011424:Propionibacterium / Q000502:physiology*; D014421:Turkey
chemical_list: D001426:Bacterial Proteins