Plasmid profiles of ten strains of Lactobacillus plantarum

Abstract The presence of extrachromosomal DNA elements has been investigated in 10 strains of Lactobacillus plantarum .
8 of the strains contained from 1 to 6 plasmids of different M _r values spanning from 1.35 · 10⁶ to 15.4 · 10⁶.
6 of the strains are commonly used as starter cultures in dry sausage and all these strains contained plasmids. The remaining 4 strains were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection and only 2 of these strains were found to harbour plasmids.