Lactobacillus - mucosal-immunology-lab/bacterial-database GitHub Wiki
Lactobacillus
| Bacterial Information | Value |
|---|---|
| Taxonomy level | Genus |
| NCBI Taxonomy ID | 1578 |
| Phylum | Firmicutes |
| Family | Lactobacillaceae |
| Gram stain | Gram-positive |
| Oxygen requirements | Aerotolerant anaerobic or microaerophilic |
| Spore-forming | No |
| Motile | No |
| Image |
Table of Contents
Overview
Lactobacillus species are Gram-positive, homofermentative (produce only lactic acid from glucose fermentation), thermophilic, and non-spore-forming rods (Zheng 2020). Most Lactobacillus species do not ferment pentoses and none of the organisms encode genes for the pentose-phosphate pathway or pyruvate formate lyase. Most are highly adapted to vertebrate hosts (there are exceptions, e.g. the L. melliventris clade are adapted to social bees (Martinson 2011)). They can ferment a relatively broad spectrum of carbohydrates and have strain-specific ability to ferment extracellular fructans, starch, or glycogen (van der Veer 2019)(Wang 2019).
In intestinal habitats, Lactobacillus species are generally associated with heterofermentative lactobacilli, believed to be due to long-term evolutionary relationships in biofilms (Lin 2018) and a complementary preference for carbon sources (Gänzle 2015)(Tannock 2012).