Production of an antibacterial substance by Bacillus mojavensis strain F412 isolated from a Myanmar shrimp product fermented with boiled rice

An antibacterial-substance-producing bacterium, namely, strain F412, was isolated from a traditional Myanmar shrimp product fermented with boiled rice. It was a gram-positive, spore-forming, and rod-shaped bacterium, and identified as Bacillus mojavensis on the basis of the gyrA sequence. The antibacterial substance of this strain was partially purified from a culture supernatant using two steps of column chromatography. This substance was found to be widely effective against gram-positive bacteria, including Listeria monocytogenes. The antibacterial activity of this substance was not susceptible to treatments with several proteolytic enzymes. The antibacterial activity gradually decreased with increasing treatment temperature, but it remained even after heating for 15 min at 121 A degrees C. This antibacterial substance showed different molecular weights, as shown by the results of gel filtration and electrophoresis analyses. Staining results after electrophoresis suggest that the antibacterial substance might be a glycopeptide with an estimated molecular weight between 3.5 and 8.5 kDa. From the decrease in optical density of a culture of the L. monocytogenes treated with this antibacterial substance, it was suggested that this substance might have bacteriolytic activity.