Brevibacterium linens

Brevibacterium linens
German Romadur cheese, with Brevibacterium linens causing "red smear" on its surface
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Bacteria
Phylum: Actinomycetota
Class: Actinomycetia
Order: Micrococcales
Family: Brevibacteriaceae
Genus: Brevibacterium
Species:
B. linens
Binomial name
Brevibacterium linens
(Wolff 1910) Breed 1953 (Approved Lists 1980)[1]
Type strain
ATCC 9172[2]
CIP 101125
DSM 20425
HAMBI 2038
IFO 12142
JCM 1327
NBRC 12142
NRRL B-4210
VKM Ac-2112
Synonyms[2]
  • "Bacterium linens" Wolff 1910

Brevibacterium linens is a gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium. It is the type species of the family Brevibacteriaceae.[3]

Brevibacterium linens is ubiquitously present on the human skin, where it causes foot odor. The familiar odor is due to sulfur-containing compounds known as S-methyl thioesters. The same bacterium is employed to ferment several washed-rind and smear-ripened cheeses, such as Munster, Limburger, Tilsit cheese, Port-Salut, Raclette, Livarot, Pont l'Eveque, Époisses, Wisconsin Brick, Năsal and Pálpusztai. It is also used in the production of blue cheese, in addition to the mold Penicillium roqueforti. Its aroma also attracts mosquitoes.[4]

The first comprehensive proteomic reference map of B. linens was published in 2013.[5]

  1. ^ Breed RS. (1953). "The Brevibacteriaceae fam. nov. of order Eubacteriales". Riassunti delle Communicazioni, VI Congresso Internazionale Microbiologia Roma [Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of Microbiology, Rome]. 1: 10–15.
  2. ^ a b Euzéby JP, Parte AC. "Brevibacterium linens". List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN). Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  3. ^ V. B. D. Skerman; Vicki Mcgowan; P. H. A. Sneath (1 January 1980). "Approved Lists of Bacterial Names". International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. 30 (7038): 225–420. doi:10.1099/00207713-30-1-225.
  4. ^ Bernard Dixon (27 April 1996). "Cheese, toes, and mosquitoes". British Medical Journal. 312 (7038): 1105. doi:10.1136/bmj.312.7038.1105. S2CID 72609132.
  5. ^ Shabbiri, Khadija; Botting, Catherine H.; Adnan, Ahmad; Fuszard, Matthew (2013). "Charting the cellular and extracellular proteome analysis of Brevibacterium linens DSM 20158 with unsequenced genome by mass spectrometry-driven sequence similarity searches". Journal of Proteomics. 83: 99–118. doi:10.1016/j.jprot.2013.02.029. PMID 23507220.