Characteristics for ornithine-production and ornithine-synthase from Bifidobacterium longum.

Bifidobacterium longum KCTC 5734 was evaluated for use in sunsik fermentation, where sunsik, Korean heated cereal powder, was used as the sole growth medium. Interestingly, B. longum KCTC 5734 was found to produce ornithine (12.3 ppm) from sunsik. In order to confirm the presence of an ornithine production pathway in this strain, genomic DNA was purified and amplified using PCR, products were cloned into Escherichia coli, and the amino acids sequence of the vector was used for multiple alignment analysis. The results identified 2 genes in the genome of B. longum KCTC 5734, coding for a putative N-acetylornithine aminotransferase and N-acetylglutamate synthase/ornithine acetyltransferase. This indicates that B. longum KCTC 5734 can be used as a starter culture for the production of ornithine-rich foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]