Characteristics of Bacillus cereus isolates from legume-based Indian fermented foods

An antibiogram of 48 strains of Bacillus cereus isolated from 6 different kinds of legume-based Indian fermented foods (amriti, dhokla, dosa, idli, papad and wadi) was generated against 18 different antibiotics that are commonly used against foodborne diseases, mainly gastroenteritis. Each of the isolates was found to be resistant against at least nine different antibiotics. Production of extracellular enzymes, namely protease, lipase and amylase by 33%, 27% and 46%, respectively, of the isolates indicates their potentiality for food spoilage. In brain–heart infusion broth supplemented with glucose, the D100 °C-values for the tested 12 strains ranged from 3.0 to 9.2 min. In nutrient broth, the minimum and maximum pHs permitting growth of B. cereus were 5.3 and 11.6, respectively. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of sodium chloride, benzoic acid and sorbic acid for the growth of the isolates were 65–85 mg ml−1, 400–700 μg ml−1 (pH 5.0–4.2) and 500–600 μg ml−1 (pH 5.0–4.8), respectively. Of the tested 10 strains, eight were resistant to 300 μg nisin ml−1 (pH 5.0). While studying the combined effect of selected hurdles on the growth of an isolate, the judicious combination considered was 20 mg sodium chloride, 300 μg benzoic acid and 25 μg nisin ml−1 at pH 5.6. The whole-cell protein fingerprinting (WCPF) analysis using SDS–PAGE revealed a high level of diversity among the isolates. At ⩾60% similarity level, the WCPF profiles could be grouped into four major clusters which were divided into 34 subclusters. Most of the subclusters were source-wise homogeneous.