“…With 16S rRNAbased phylogenetic analysis, at least eight phylogenetic groups have been recognized (10). Investigations by many authors using several molecular approaches focused on closely related species, such as the L. casei-related taxa (6,9,12,38,44,47,57,61), the L. acidophilus group (19,32,41,45,47), the L. delbrueckii subspecies (20,35,36,56), and the L. plantarum-related species (54). Nevertheless, the discrimination of very closely related species, especially of subspecies, is often critical (10).…”