Many traditional fermented foods contain diverse bacteria and many lactic acid bacteria (LAB) play important roles for the fermentation of foods such as many dairy foods and kimchi. Especially, Leuconostoc mesenteroides is one of major bacteria in those fermented foods and the development of this species would be expected to be critical for strain improvement as well as the industrialization. Up to now, a lot of plasmids were isolated from Leuconostocs species including Leu. mesenteroides and a number of vector systems has been developed. Many plasmid vector systems using Leuconostocs spp. employ RCR (rolling circle replication) producing single-stranded DNA intermediates or sometimes takes theta replication. These plasmids include the sequences for Pre protein, recombination specific sites such as RSA (recombination site A) and RSB (recombination site B), and single strain origins for RCR replication. This information might be helpful to elucidate the improvement of Leuconostocs spp. and moreover the development of diverse products using Leuconostocs spp.

Abstract
 서 론
 유산균 Leuconostoc mesenteroides
 Leuconostoc mesenteroides의 특성 및벡터 개발
 Leuconostoc 속 유래 Plasmid의 구조적 특성
 결 론
 참고문헌

• 박우정(강릉원주대학교 해양식품공학과) | Woo Jung Park (Department of Marine Food Science and Technology, Gangneung-Wonju National University)
• 이형재(단국대학교 식품공학과) | Hyungjae Lee (Department of Food Engineering, Dankook University)
• 정하열(한경대학교 식품생물공학과) | Ha-Yull Chung (Department of Food Science & Biotechnology, Hankyong National University) Corresponding author