Abstract:
Carnobacterium maltaromaticum is a diverse lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that is found and isolated
from various environments and habitats. It is present in a variety of foods that includes dairy as
well as non-dairy products such as meat and fish where they are capable of producing flavors in
milk and effective bacteriocins against Listeria monocytogenes in processed-food products,
respectively. Apart from technological potential in food products, C. maltaromaticum is a known
pathogen in fish and due to this reason, they are not considered safe by EFSA. This study aims
to differentiate between genomes of fish pathogenic strains and non-pathogenic food strains of
C. maltaromaticum. Therefore, to study the genomic differences in this diversely found specie,
the phylogenetic & pan-core genome analysis, as well as safety assessment on the basis of
virulence factors, antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity island acquisition was determined using
in silico approach. Results show that increase in pseudogenes of SK series of pathogenic strains
suggests the transition of pathogenic strains to host-adapted (fish) lifestyle. Moreover, the safety
assessment revealed that apathogenic strains cannot be termed completely safe due to the
presence of virulence factors and pathogenicity islands and thus, safety might be a strain-specific
feature. The genomic variations and safety determined in this study will provide insight into the
potential application of dairy strains as probiotics. However, further in-vivo evaluations are
required to confirm their potential and safety
