Proteome dynamics in Lactococcus cremoris Exploring laboratory and industrial application conditions

Summary

The protein repertoire (proteome) of lactic acid bacteria plays a key role in cheese quality and flavour but is influenced by various environmental stresses during the cheese production process. Therefore, it is essential to fundamentally understand how these bacteria adapt their proteome to dynamic conditions to ensure cheese quality and characteristics.

The proteome is predominantly determined by protein production that depends on genome-wide mRNA levels as well as their individual, sequence-dependent translation efficiency, which is differently orchestrated per bacterial species. Proteome adaptation under dynamic conditions is largely driven by adjustment of protein production, with a minor role for active protein degradation. Finally, to follow proteome adaptation during cheese manufacturing, we developed a procedure to determine bacterial proteomes in the complex and protein-rich cheese environment.

In conclusion, this research underpins the value of proteomics in unraveling bacterial adaptation and performance under the dynamic conditions encountered during their application in biotechnology.