Identification of guaiacol producing <i>Alicyclobacillus</i> recovered from commercial orange juices distributed in Greek markets

The objective of this work was the isolation and characterization of Alicyclobacillus acidoterrestris strains from orange juice. In all, 72 isolates were recovered from commercial orange juice bought from the Greek market. The isolates were subjected to polymerase chain reaction–restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) to discriminate them at strain level and A. acidoterrestris types I and II. The restriction patterns of 16S rRNA gene revealed that isolates were categorized in different groups depending on the restriction endonucleases. Moreover, the digestion of the part of vdc operon gene with HphI restriction enzyme successfully differentiated between A. acidoterrestris types I and II. In conclusion, RFLP succeeded in differentiating A. acidoterrestris isolates at strain and type levels.