Core microbiota in Chinese liquor fermentation and associations with environmental factors

Abstract:

[Objective] The aim of this study is to reveal core microbiota during Chinese liquors fermentation, and to quantify the impact of environmental factors on the variations of the core microbiota.[Methods] The microbial community composition was characterized by high-throughput sequencing. The volatile compounds were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Core microbiota was defined according to the microbial function and microbial correlation patterns using the microbe-metabolite correlation approach and co-occurrence network analysis. We used redundancy analysis and Monte Carlo permutation test to analyze the influence of environmental factors on the core microbiota.[Results] The core microbiota during the liquor fermentation consisted of Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, Candida, Rhizopus, Saccharomycopsis, Pichia, Dipodascus, Bacillus, Thermoascus and Lactococcus. The variations of the core microbiota were mainly affected by the chemical factors such as reducing sugar and ethanol. In addition, the interaction between physical and chemical factors was also substantial for the core microbiota variations.[Conclusion] This study disentangled the relationship between microbial communities and metabolites, found out the core microbiota in the liquor fermentation process, and quantified the influence of environmental factors on the variations of core microbiota, hence providing a theoretical perspective for regulating the production of liquors by using synthetic microbial communities or by controlling environmental factors.