Abstract

Twenty five isolates of Bacillus species were obtained from ten commercial samples of ‘iru’ (fermented African locust bean), after heat-treatment at 80°C for 30 min. All the isolates were Gram-positive, spore-former, catalase-positive, non-motile rods. The phylogenic relationship between the isolates was studied by repetitive PCR fingerprinting using the (GTG)₅ primer, referred to as (GTG)₅-PCR fingerprinting and 16S rRNA gene sequencing analyses. The (GTG)₅-PCR fingerprinting resulted in grouping of the isolates into 12 phylogenetic groups. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, most of the Bacillus isolates were found to be closely related to Bacillus subtilis, while strain 8B was closely related to Bacillus licheniformis.

Key words: ‘Iru’, Bacillus, starter culture, African locust bean, Parkia biglobosa fermentation, rep-PCR fingerprint, 16S rRNA sequencing.