Functional traits of Lactobacillus plantarum from fermented Brassica oleracea var. capitata L. in view of multivariate statistical analysis

In the present study, Lactobacillus plantarum strain was isolated and identified from spontaneous fermentation of Brassica oleracea var. capitata L. We used the Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean Analysis (UPGMA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to examine the variations in the functional properties of the isolates. Six functional traits were analyzed, i.e., viability at low pH, resistance to lysozyme and to SIF, auto- and coaggregation, and beta-glucosidase activity. The present work is the first study in which the PCA and UPGMA statistical methods were used together to analyze data obtained from the same microbiological experiments. This provided information about the similarity of the examined isolates in terms of their functional traits. Additionally, the level of the analyzed functional traits within the particular groups of isolates was shown. The presented approach is the basis for choosing isolates that are most closely related to the reference strain isolated from pickled cabbage.