Soidon is a non-salted acidic fermented food prepared from the succulent bamboo shoot tip of Schizostachyum capitatum Munro by using a traditional liquid starter called "soidon mahi" in Manipur state of India. In this study, 163 bacterial isolates associated with this starter samples were identified and their population distribution was investigated by amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA), 16S rDNA sequencing and randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. This acidic starter (pH 4.5+/-0.15) was dominated by a characteristic association of Bacillus and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) together. The population distribution of dominant species were Bacillus subtilis 29.3%, Bacillus cereus 35.7%, Bacillus pumilus 2.6%, Lactobacillus brevis 9.6%, Lactobacillus plantarum 5.1%, Carnobacterium sp. 11.9%, Enterococcus faecium 1.2% and Pseudomonas fluorescens 4.6%. Alarming population load (10(6)-10(7)cfu/ml) of B. cereus in 87% of starter samples studied should raise concern regarding biosafety of soidon consumption. PCR amplification of 16S-23S rDNA intergenic transcribed spacer (ITS) region and ITS-RFLP profiles revealed a high diversity with eight subgroups in B. subtilis, five subgroups in B. cereus and three subgroups in L. brevis isolates. The most abundant B. subtilis subgroup IB.1 distributed in most of the samples showed very less clonal variability during RAPD analysis. The molecular methods used in this study identified the dominant strains of Bacillus and LAB distributed in most of the starter samples. These dominant strains of B. subtilis, L. brevis and L. plantarum would allow for developing a defined starter culture for the production of quality soidon.
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