The lactic acid bacteria are key microorganisms for the production and preservation of fermented dairy products, cheeses, sourdough bread, and lacto-fermented vegetables. This study was developed to monitor lactic acid produced by Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014 and Lactobacillus casei ATCC 393, as single strains and combined, in fermenting media by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy coupled to multivariate statistical analysis. Media containing different mixtures of carbohydrates were chosen as model fermenting media for monitoring lactic acid concentration by infrared spectroscopy, due to the fact that vegetable and animal food matrices could contain different carbohydrates as carbon sources. Three different types of media were obtained by adding different carbohydrates to a basic MRS medium. HPLC was used as reference method for lactic acid quantifi cation. The calibration set (n=36) was used for building model, while a validation set (n=13) for testing the robustness of the developed model. The coeffi cients of determination between predicted and reference values were 0.986 and 0.965, while root mean square error for calibration and validation sets recorded values of 0.127 and 0.263 g·l -1 , respectively. Results confi rmed the effi ciency of FTIR spectroscopy combined with multivariate statistics, as a rapid, reliable, and cost-effective tool for routine monitoring of lactic acid.
Keywords: chemometric methods, FTIR, lactic acid, LactobacillusLactic acid bacteria (LAB) are used for production and preservation of fermented dairy products, cheeses, sourdough bread, and also lacto-fermented vegetables (ZALAN et al., 2010), where they contribute to important qualities such as taste, texture, and shelf life (HORN et al., 2005). In the present study, a FTIR method for determination of lactic acid production in fermenting media by Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC 8014 and Lactobacillus casei ATCC 393 was investigated. The two types of LAB were selected due to their high adaptability to different substrates and growing conditions. Lactobacillus plantarum is a facultative heterofermentative strain, widely used in a variety of food fermentations, with good adaptation ability due to its high metabolic fl exibility to challenging environments. Lactobacillus casei is also adaptable to diverse conditions, being capable of metabolizing a variety of carbohydrates and to shift homo/heterolactic fermentation profi les.* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Phone: +40 264 596 384; fax: +40 264 593 792; e-mail: vlad.muresan@usamvcluj.roThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.