Lactic acid bacteria

This special issue contains a selection of papers presented at the 14th Meeting of the Lactic Acid Bacteria Club in Paris in May 2006. The meeting was devoted to fundamental and applied research on lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The first part of the issue focuses on the biology of LAB and on LAB in their biotope, and the second part deals with LAB in the host, evaluating the potential of these bacteria to improve human health. Research on LAB is shown to have benefited from the general burst of new techniques and global approaches, and the results presented are raising exciting new questions to be solved by future research. Contents