Bacteriocins: an emerging alternative against multidrug-resistant bacteria

Laila Ben said^1,2, Samantha Bennett³, Pierre Lacasse³, Ismail Fliss^1,2

¹Food science department, Food and agriculture faculty, Laval University, Quebec, Quebec, Canada
²Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods, Laval University, Quebec, Quebec, Canada

In livestock production, antibiotics are used to promote animal growth, control infections, and thereby increase profitability. Even if antibiotics are used judiciously, this does not prevent the emergence of multidrug resistant bacteria (MDR). Several antibiotics used as growth promoter in animal breeding are identical or closely related to those used in human. Efforts to develop new alternative strategies to control bacterial infections related to MDR are continuously on the rise. Promising alternatives include bacteriocins, ribosomally synthesized peptides by Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, displaying antimicrobial activity against phylogenetically related strains. In this presentation, the inhibitory activity of microcin J25, bacteriocin produced by E. coli, nisin, bactofencin and pediocin, bacteriocins produced by Gram-positive bacteria, against multidrug-resistant isolates of Salmonella, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus, will be demonstrated. We will also present an example of the application of a consortium of bacteriocins on the teats of dairy cows in order to reduce the bacterial populations causing bovine mastitis.