APPLIED GENETICS AND MOLECULAR BIOTECHNOLOGY Genetic diversity analysis of Leuconostoc mesenteroides from Korean vegetables and food products by multilocus sequence typing Anshul Sharma 1 & Jasmine Kaur 1 & Sulhee Lee 1 & Young-Seo Park 1 Received: 22 November 2017 /Revised: 7 March 2018 /Accepted: 14 March 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract In the present study, 35 Leuconostoc mesenteroides strains isolated from vegetables and food products from South Korea were studied by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) of seven housekeeping genes (atpA, groEL, gyrB, pheS, pyrG, rpoA, and uvrC). The fragment sizes of the seven amplified housekeeping genes ranged in length from 366 to 1414 bp. Sequence analysis indicated 27 different sequence types (STs) with 25 of them being represented by a single strain indicating high genetic diversity, whereas the remaining 2 were characterized by five strains each. In total, 220 polymorphic nucleotide sites were detected among seven housekeeping genes. The phylogenetic analysis based on the STs of the seven loci indicated that the 35 strains belonged to two major groups, A (28 strains) and B (7 strains). Split decomposition analysis showed that intraspecies recombination played a role in generating diversity among strains. The minimum spanning tree showed that the evolution of the STs was not correlated with food source. This study signifies that the multilocus sequence typing is a valuable tool to access the genetic diversity among L. mesenteroides strains from South Korea and can be used further to monitor the evolutionary changes. Keywords Leuconostoc mesenteroides . MLST . PCR . Splits tree . Sequence type Introduction The genus Leuconostoc consists of heterofermentative, Gram-positive, non-motile, non-sporulating, and faculta- tive anaerobic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that produce lactic acid as one of the key fermentation products from carbohy- drate metabolism (Axelsson 2004; Hayek and Ibrahim 2013). At present, nearly 400 species of LAB have been recognized (Zhang et al. 2011) and the genus Leuconostoc is comprised of 24 different species (Kot et al. 2014). The genus Leuconostoc includes Leuconostoc mesenteroides (with four subspecies: mesenteroides , dextranicum, cremoris , and suionicum) and 23 other species, i.e., L. amelibiosum, L. argentinum, L. cremoris, L. citreum, L. carnosum, L. dextranicum, L. durionis , L. fallax , L. ficulneum , L. holzapfelii , L. pseudoficulneum , L. fructosum, L. gasicomitatum, L. gelidum, L. inhae, L. kimchii , L. lactis , L. pseudomesenteroides , L. miyukkimchii, L. oeni, L. palmae, L. paramesenteroides, and the recently reported L. rapi ( www.bacterio.net ). Leuconostocs can be found in various natural niches such as green vegetation and plant roots (Hemme and Foucaud- Scheunemann 2004). In addition, the genus Leuconostoc has also been found to be associated with beverages, meat, vegetables, and dairy and bakery products (Wassie and Wassie 2016). The amazing fermentative capacity of these bacteria helps to improve organoleptic attributes and safety of the food products (Gemechu 2015). It has also been re- ported that Leuconostoc helps in augmentation of various nutrients in the food products, including ample health ben- efits for humans (Steele et al. 2013 ). Furthermore, leuconostocs are utilized as starter cultures for various in- dustrial processes and also as a flavoring and texturizing agents (Dan et al. 2014). Several typing methods have been used for the identifica- tion, characterization, and utilization of LAB (Sabat et al. 2013; Tanigawa and Watanabe 2011). Generally, typing of bacteria is related to phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Phenotyping includes traditional methods such as serotypes, biotypes, phage-types, and antibiograms (Dan et al. 2014). In * Young-Seo Park ypark@gachon.ac.kr 1 Department of Food Science and Biotechnology, Gachon University, Seongnam 13120, South Korea Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-018-8942-4