| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study describes a strategy to select and isolate spontaneous riboflavin-overproducing strains of <it>Lactobacillus </it>(<it>Lb</it>.) <it>plantarum</it>, <it>Leuconostoc </it>(<it>Lc</it>.) <it>mesenteroides </it>and <it>Propionibacterium </it>(<it>P</it>.) <it>freudenreichii</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The toxic riboflavin analogue roseoflavin was used to isolate natural riboflavin-overproducing variants of the food grade micro-organisms <it>Lb. plantarum</it>, <it>Lc. mesenteroides </it>and <it>P. freudenreichii </it>strains. The method was successfully employed for strains of all three species. The mutation(s) responsible for the observed overproduction of riboflavin were identified for isolates of two species.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Selection for spontaneous roseoflavin-resistant mutants was found to be a reliable method to obtain natural riboflavin-overproducing strains of a number of species commonly used in the food industry. This study presents a convenient method for deriving riboflavin-overproducing strains of bacterial starter cultures, which are currently used in the food industry, by a non-recombinant methodology. Use of such starter strains can be exploited to increase the vitamin content in certain food products.</p>
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