The contamination of pasteurised fruit juice products by thermophilic acidophilic bacteria (TAB) has become a concern for producers. The aim of this study was to identify the bacteria present in South African fruit juices before and after pasteurisation, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). Alicyclobacillus acidote"estris was found to be pr...

AaManA, a beta-1,4-mannanase from the thermoacidophile Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius Tc-12-31, was expressed in Escherichia coli and purified in a form suitable for X-ray crystallographic analysis. Crystals were obtained using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method at 291 K using ammonium dihydrogen phosphate as a precipitant. Data were collected from native mannanase and from a selenomethi...

An approach based on immunomagnetic separation (IMS) and SYBR Green I real-time PCR (real-time PCR) with species-specific primers and melting curve analysis was proposed as a rapid and effective method for detecting Alicyclobacillus spp. in fruit juices. Specific primers targeting the 16S rDNA sequences of Alicyclobacillus spp. were designed and then confirmed by the amplification of DNA extrac...

Until recently, acidic products such as fruit juice and fruit based products were generally thought to be susceptible to spoilage by yeasts, mycelia fungi and lactic acid bacteria, as the low pH of these products acts as natural control measures against spoilage by most bacteria. Alicyclobacillus seem to be prevalent in fruit based products as they survive the acidic fruit juice environment, ev...

Essential oils (EOs) are promising and friendly antimicrobials for the prolongation of the shelf life of many foods. They have been extensively used to inhibit spoiling and pathogenic microorganisms of many kinds of products like fruit juices and acidic drinks. Therefore, they could be used successfully to control the germination of spores of Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris, that finds in thes...

To provide insight into the catalytic mechanism for the final deprotonation reaction of squalene-hopene cyclase (SHC) from Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius, mutagenesis experiments were conducted for the following ten residues: Thr41, Glu45, Glu93, Arg127, Trp133, Gln262, Pro263, Tyr267, Phe434 and Phe437. An X-ray analysis of SHC has revealed that two types of water molecules ("front water" and...

Figure 1: GeneDisc Plate for TAB Spoilage Alicyclobacilli are thermophilic, acidophilic and spore-forming bacteria (TAB) capable of surviving extreme conditions during the fruit juice manufacturing and bottling processes. These spoilage organisms can generate strong off-flavors and off-odors, which negatively affect product quality in fruit juices, concentrates and ingredients used in beverage ...

Using structural insight, the binding mode of isofagomine-derived inhibitors with family GH9 glycosidases is achieved via the study of Alicyclobacillus acidocaldarius (AaCel9A) endoglucanase. In contrast to what was observed in the first report using these compounds with inverting glycosidases from family GH6, these inhibitors do not adopt a distorted conformation in the active site.