Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are important in food fermentation and may enhance overall host health. Previous studies to explore LAB metabolism mainly focused on the genera Lacticaseibacillus and Lactococcus. Pediococcus pentosaceus, historically recognized as an important food fermentation bacterial strain, can produce bacteriocins and occasionally demonstrated probiotic functionalities. This study thoroughly surveyed the growth kinetic of three P. pentosaceus isolates in various culture formulations, especially in fructooligosaccharide (FOS), xylooligosaccharide (XOS), or konjac mannooligosaccharide (KMOS) conditions. Results showed that P. pentosaceus effectively metabolized KMOS, the culture of which led to 23.6-fold population increase. However, FOS and XOS were less metabolized by P. pentosaceus. On functional oligosaccharide cultures, P. pentosaceus could result in higher population proliferation, more acidified fermentation environment, and higher glycoside hydrolysis activities in the culture. RNA-Seq analysis classified 1572 out of 1708 putative genes as mRNA-coding genes. The dataset also revealed that the three functional oligosaccharides led to extensive global functional gene regulations. Phosphate conservation and utilization efficiency enhancement may serve as a leading transcriptional regulation direction in functional oligosaccharide metabolisms. In summary, these discovered metabolic characteristics could be employed to support future studies. KEY POINTS: • Konjac mannooligosaccharides effectively promoted P. pentosaceus proliferation. • Functional genes were highly regulated in functional oligosaccharide utilization. • Phosphate conservation was an important transcriptional regulation direction.
Keywords: Functional oligosaccharides; Metabolic characteristics; Pediococcus pentosaceus; Probiotics; RNA-Seq.