Lactiplantibacillus plantarum enters this corpus from two directions: as a “plant-associated and gut-associated Firmicute with well-developed genetic tools” proposed as an experimental host for testing uncharacterized genes 1, and as a commonly proposed probiotic whose safety in a cystic fibrosis context is questioned 2.
Names used in this corpus
- Lactobacillus plantarum — the name used in the functional-dark-matter candidate list 1
- Lactobacillus plantarum WCFS1 — the specific strain named as a candidate organism 1
- Lactiplantibacillus plantarum — the name used in the cystic fibrosis formulation-design report 2
Probiotic-safety caution in cystic fibrosis formulation design
The cystic fibrosis formulation-design project records that Lactiplantibacillus plantarum — a commonly proposed probiotic — actually enhanced pseudomonas-aeruginosa (PA) pathogenicity in a CF sputum–epithelial cell model, per Drost & Fuhrmann (2025); the project carries this as a caveat against generic probiotic-safety assumptions when designing live-organism formulations 2.
Evidence grading for that caution: it is a bibliographic caveat, not a measurement made in this corpus. The enhanced-pathogenicity statement is the finding of an externally cited paper — Drost M, Fuhrmann G (2025), “Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Its Unsuspected Ally Lactiplantibacillus plantarum: Enhanced Pathogenicity in A Combined Cystic Fibrosis Sputum–Epithelial Cell Model,” ACS Infect Dis, DOI: 10.1021/acsinfecdis.5c00759 — so the effect size, model details and conditions must be read from the primary publication before the caution is used as a hard design constraint 2.
Candidate host for dark-gene experiments
In the functional-dark-matter candidate list, Lactobacillus plantarum WCFS1 appears as candidate 6, a Firmicute (Bacilli) selected because it would complement bacillus-subtilis with a different ecological niche and would enable testing carbon-source dark genes in a fermentative bacterium; the stated purpose is to broaden Firmicutes ecological coverage 1. This is a prioritization proposal, not an executed experiment; see experimental-prioritization-of-functional-dark-matter for the selection logic it belongs to 1.