Exploiting antimicrobial potential of gut microbial isolates from honeybees and wild bees. Bacteria

A considerable number of Lactobacillus strains were isolated from bee guts collected in Bologna. Their ability to produce antimicrobial peptides was assessed with the well diffusion essay test. 3 out of the 6 novel Lactobacillus species recently identified by Olofsson et al 2014, were found capable to produce Helveticin like bacteryolisins and other bacteriocines. In this project we aim to identify those bacteryolisins and bacteriocines and their functionality by analysis of the genome sequences, and following comparison putative bacteryolisins ORF with N-terminal amino acid sequences obtained from the purified bacteryolisins.