Development of Wide-Spectrum Hybrid Bacteriocins for Food Biopreservation

The food industry demands new procedures and methods to produce minimally processed, ready to eat food with intact nutritional, taste, and flavor properties. The biopreservation and the use of both bacteriocins produced by lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and bacteriocinogenic strains as an alternative to substitute chemical antimicrobial for food preservation became increasingly important in the last two decades. When the new proposed natural preservatives techniques are applied, probiotics food can be obtained and, simultaneously, foodborne pathogens and spoilage contaminants can diminish. However, bacteriocins produced by LAB have a narrow antibacterial spectrum and are inactive against Gram-negative bacteria like Salmonella and the emergent enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli. Knowing the mechanism of action and the structural features of microcins synthesized by Gram-negative bacteria and with potent antimicrobial activity against the mentioned microorganism, the proposal is to obtain hybrid peptides (microcin–bacteriocin) with broad antimicrobial spectrum. This review explains how the inability of bacteriocins to cross the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria unable them to act on the bacteria. It will also be discussed how a hybrid bacteriocin can be obtained.