Abstract

The aims of this study were to identify and characterize lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from healthy forest musk deer (FMD) feces which have good potential to develop orally delivered probiotics applied in FMD. Eight LAB isolates were obtained from feces samples and were identified as Lactobacillus acidipiscis, Lactobacillus plantarum, Enterococcus faecium, Enterococcus mundtii, Enterococcus durans and Leuconostoc fallax using morphology, physiology, biochemical and 16s rDNA PCR methods. Five strains were selected after safety and function tests which showed no hemolytic activity, no harmful indole and hydrogen sulphide produced, safety to KM mouse, growth inhibition toEscherichia coli (ATCC25922), Salmonella pullorum (CVCC527) and Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC29213), and no acquired resistance genes detected. The growth of five strains could not be inhibited by 0.9% pig bile. Two Lactobacillus strains could survive at as low as pH 2.0. One L. acidipiscis strain and one E. durans strain could survive at as high as 70°C. Five strains identified as L. acidipiscis, L. plantarum, Enterococcus faeciumand L. fallax could be well suitable for developing an orally delivered probiotic. To our knowledge, this is the first time to isolate and identify LAB from forest musk deer feces and the characterized strains have good potential for developing an orally delivered probiotic to improve health condition of forest musk deer.

Key words: Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), probiotics, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus,Leuconostoc.

Abbreviation

LAB, Lactic acid bacteria; FMD, forest musk deer; GRAS, general regard as safe; MRS, Man-Ragosa-Sharpe agar; PCR, polymerase chain reaction; BLAST,basic local alignment search tool; NCBI, national center for biotechnology information; KM mouse, Kun-Ming mouse; MH, Mueller-Hinton agar; CLSI, clinical and laboratory standards institute; RFLP, restriction fragment length polymorphism; RAPD, randomly amplified polymorphic DNA; M.D.L, musk deer lactobacillus; M.D.E, musk deerenterococcus.