Abstract: Our previous studies have indicated the existence of Lactobacillus sakei in naturally fermented shubat. It is still unclear, however, whether the presence of Lactobacillus sakei has positive effect on the fermentation of shubat. In this work, a novel method for detecting Lactobacillus sakei was proposed based on the combination of its characteristic colony morphology and katA gene sequence and the effect of Lactobacillus sakei addition before natural fermentation on fermentation characteristics of camel milk was tested. As the fermentation proceeded, the viscosity of camel milk inoculated with Lactobacillus sakei progressively declined, while an opposite trend was observed for uninoculated camel milk. Further, the viscosity of camel milk was decreased during fermentation with 3 strains of Lactobacillus sakei isolated from home-made shubat in Xinjiang, while fermentation with other 6 lactic acid bacterial strains from the same sources resulted in an opposite trend, revealing that Lactobacillus sakei can play an important role in the fermentation of low-viscosity traditional shubat.

Key words: Lactobacillus sakei, katA gene, shubat, ferment, viscosity