Solvent extraction of bacteriocins from liquid cultures

A solvent extraction method was developed to concentrate lacidin from the culture of Lactobacillus acidophilus OSU133. The new method concentrates the bacteriocin at the interface between chloroform and the aqueous culture of the producing bacterium. Compared with other extraction procedures, the new method effectively recovers higher bacteriocin yield and results in relatively clean preparations. Recovery of lacidin by the chloroform extraction procedure, compared with ammonium sulphate precipitation and cell acidification methods, was > 10-fold and about 100-fold greater, respectively. The new extraction procedure saves time and is easy to perform. This method is also effective in recovering subtilin, bacillicin, pediocin and nisin from cultures of Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633, B. subtilis OSY1115/C, Pediococcus acidilactici PO2 and Lactococcus lactis ATCC 11454, respectively.