A Review of Anti-Phage Systems in Lactic Acid Bacteria

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are essential microorganisms in the formulation of several starters in the food industry. One of the main problems in food fermentation is the widespread presence of malignant bacteriophages, which can change the quality of fermented products or delay production processes. The anti-phage ability of lactic acid bacteria is a potential feature that has been considered to solve their problem against bacteriophages. During evolution, lactic acid bacteria have used several mechanisms to escape and fight against bacteriophages, including adsorption inhibition, injection blocking, restriction modification (R/M), abortive infection (Abi) and CRISPR/Cas system. In this article, these mechanisms are explained and discussed in detail. Also, common phages that target these bacteria were presented and discussed. This article provides important information about the phages related to lactic acid bacteria and the mechanisms to deal with them and it can be a comprehensive guide for future studies.