Screening of exopolysaccharide-producing coccal lactic acid bacteria isolated from camel milk and red meat of Algeria

The analysis of coccal lactic acid bacteria (CLAB) strains for their competence in polysaccharide production has been given proper attention as texturing and thickening agents. The characterization of these strains has been performed from two natural environments (camel milk and red meat). All the isolates were evaluated for exopolysaccharides (EPS) production on certain solid medium and ruthenium red milk agar plate. Based on their EPS-producing colony phenotype, five strains were chosen giving an important white-color and mucoid aspect on sucrose-based media which being the best for detecting the EPS. Quantitative estimation of EPS indicated that amount of this polymer rendered more than 400 mg/L and the apparent viscosity ranged from 2.1 to 2.9 milli Pascals per second (mPa.s). Therefore, there was not found a close relationship between the amount of EPS and the apparent viscosity. Three strains were selected for their significant production of EPS. For protein assay, a low content of protein was obtained on crude polymer revealing the quality of EPS extracts.   Key words: Coccal lactic acid bacteria (CLAB), exopolysaccharides (EPS), sucrose-based medium, apparent viscosity, amount of EPS.