A REVIEW ON MOLECULAR DETECTION OF STREPTOCOCCUS THERMOPHILUS IN DAIRY PRODUCTS

Streptococcus thermophilus is one of the commercially important dairy bacterium and considered as second most important starter culture in the manufacturing of dairy products (Yoghurt and cheese). To enhance the variety of these starter culture are not only essential to bring new strains with unique and desired characteristics, but also for the maintenance of these yoghurt starters which reduces with the overuse. In this review, different genes are used for the detection of S. thermophilus by molecular methods and as well strains producing exopolysaccharide are discussed. Molecular analysis including pulsed field gel electrophoresis and polymerase chain reaction are addressed. Since the dairy industry is keep in searching of new dairy starters for increasing the diversity of its product range, nowadays their keen attention is to explore new starter strains with high potentiality to give fermentation product