Acid tolerance and morphological characteristics of five Weissella cibaria bacteriophages isolated from kimchi

Five bacteriophages were isolated from kimchi with the hosts of two Weissella cibaria and acid-producing bacteria, and characterized for understanding Weissella phage. By transmission electron microscope, WC51 and WC52 belonged to the Myoviridae and WC005, WC130, and WC248 belonged to the Podoviridae. One-step growth curves showed that latent periods of bacteriophages ranged from 70 to 90 min and burst sizes ranged from 7 to 195 particles/cell. WC51 and WC005 were thermally resistant than the others and those D values were 71 and 34 s at 70 degrees C. pH stability test at pH 2.0-4.0 showed WC005 was most stable and the others were also stable at low pH of 3.0. Interestingly, the phages showed two types of morphology and had a high tolerance under acidic condition, therefore, which might cause mortality to the Weissella after middle stage of kimchi fermentation.