Mapping the worldwide knowledge of antimicrobial substances produced by Lactobacillus spp.: a bibliometric analysis.

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) of the genus Lactobacillus spp. can produce a wide range of antimicrobial compounds with a high biotechnological potential arising from their beneficial effects on human and animal health. This study aims to map the worldwide scientific literature on "antimicrobial substances produced by Lactobacillus spp." through a bibliometric analysis and network visualization. The relevant data were collected from the Scopus database. The main parameters assessed were annual growth, geographical distribution, citation analysis, and the number of publications per author, country, research institution, and journal. The network analysis was conducted using the software VOS viewer and the most frequent keywords. The Hirsch (h) index was used to identify the impact of scientific literature. There were 3036 articles published from 1967 up to now. The total number of citations for these articles was 111,479, with an average of 36.72 citations per article. The h-index was 142. The most productive...