Kimchi is a Korean fermented food that is prepared through a series of processes including pretreatment of Chinese cabbage, salting, blending with various spices and other ingredients, and fermentation. The characteristics of kimchi differ depending on the kimchi variety, raw materials, processing methods, and fermentation conditions. Kimchi fermentation is initiated by the various lactic acid bacteria (LAB) present in the raw materials. Sugars in raw materials are converted to lactic acid, acetic acid, carbon dioxide, and ethanol by hetero and homo fermentative LAB during kimchi fermentation, along with other chemical changes. Many physicochemical and biological factors influence kimchi fermentation. This review covers in some detail the factors affecting kimchi fermentation.

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In Southeast Asia, Lactobacillus plantarum is one of the lactic acid bacteria most commonly isolated from fermentation foods. Olympia and Takano isolated several lactic acid bacterial strains from “Burong Isda”, a fermented food made from fish and rice in the Philippines, and identified them as L. plantarum. One of the strains, L137, can hydrolyze starch, a feature rarely found in Lactobacilli from fermented foods. Thus, strain L137 is of interest for use in food processing including starch and lipid degradations. We investigated acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase operon (fabH-accBCDA), which is essential for fatty acid biosynthesis. The heatkilled strain L137 suppressed naturally fed antigen-specific IgE production by stimulation of IL12 production in mice. The strain also showed anti-tumor effect through restoration of impaired IL-12 production in tumor-bearing mice. Strain L137 contains 15 plasmids, one of which may carry an amylase gene. We developed expression vector for L. plantarum based on one of the plasmids, pLTK2, and native promoters from L137. By using the expression vector, cholesterol oxidase and antigen from house dust mite were produced in L. plantarum.

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[in Japanese]

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