In the production of fermented foods if a starter culture is infected by a bacteriophage, fermentation will be failed and undesirable products will be obtained. Characterization of a bacteriophage infecting a starter culture will provide information useful for finding a strategy to prevent the starter culture from bacteriophage infection. In this study, a bacteriophage, designated ΦLPN014, was isolated from nham. It was able to infect Lactobacillus plantarum N014, a potential starter culture in nham fermentation. Characterization of ΦLPN014 showed that the bacteriophage was highly specific to L. plantarum N014 and was completely inactivated by heat at 80°C and 90°C for 30 min. Ninety four percent of ΦLPN014 particles adsorbed on L. plantarum N014 after adding the bacteriophage in the host cell culture for 20 min. According to the one-step growth curve of ΦLPN014, the latent period, burst period and burst size were about 30 min, 120 min and 135 PFU/infected cell, respectively. The bacteriophage has an isometric head and a long non-contractile tail. Its nucleic acid was sensitive to restriction enzyme BglII but resistant to Ribonuclease A and Nuclease S1. Based on its nucleic acid and morphology, ΦLPN014 was classified in the family Siphoviridae.
