Nowadays, a healthy lifestyle is rapidly gaining popularity around the world. People promote not only an active leisure, sports, but also tend to pay more attention to a healthy nutrition. Customers want to consume food without chemical preservatives. Lactic acid bacteria which secrete bacteriocins are extensively studied since bacteriocins such as pediocins could replace chemical preservatives. Bacteriocins as bioconservants could be used to prolong the shelf life of foods and prevent the growth of microorganisms. Moreover, bacteriocins could be also an appealing alternative to antibiotics [1]. The use of those antimicrobial peptides is still limited due to the challenging procedures of purification and low yields [2].
Previously, we purified pediocin from Pediococcus acidilactici JEM-1 based on the adsorption method of pediocin on the cells and the following desorption. The yield of purification was low. About 1.6 μg of partially purified pediocin was obtained from 250 mL of Pediococcus acidilactici JEM-1 cultivation medium. The molecular mass of peptide was about 4.4 kDa as judged by Tricine-SDS polyacrylamide gel-electrophoresis. The chosen purification step is not effective and does not meet the expectations. To obtain higher yield of pediocin, the experiments are continued for choosing one-step purification method using ion-exchange chromatography.