Exploring the heterogeneity of community and function and correspondence of "species-enzymes" among three types of Daqu with different fermentation peak-temperature via high-throughput sequencing and metagenomics

Ying Huang; Dong Li; Yu Mu; Zhiyu Zhu; Yuzhang Wu; Qi Qi; Yingchun Mu; Wei Su

doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113805

Exploring the heterogeneity of community and function and correspondence of "species-enzymes" among three types of Daqu with different fermentation peak-temperature via high-throughput sequencing and metagenomics

Food Res Int. 2024 Jan:176:113805. doi: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113805. Epub 2023 Dec 4.

Authors

Ying Huang¹, Dong Li², Yu Mu³, Zhiyu Zhu⁴, Yuzhang Wu⁵, Qi Qi⁶, Yingchun Mu⁶, Wei Su⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Brewing Engineering, Moutai Institute, Renhuai 564507, China.
² Department of Food Science and Engineering, Moutai Institute, Renhuai 564507, China.
³ Department of Food Science and Engineering, Moutai Institute, Renhuai 564507, China. Electronic address: muyu@mtxy.edu.cn.
⁴ Kweichow Moutai Distillery Co. Ltd., Renhuai 564501, China.
⁵ Quality Monitoring & Evaluation Center, Moutai Institute, Renhuai 564507, China.
⁶ School of Liquor and Food Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China.

PMID: 38163713
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodres.2023.113805

Abstract

The enzyme activity of Daqu is an important prerequisite for defining it as a Baijiu starter. However, little is known about the functional species related to enzymes in different types of Daqu at the metagenomic level. Therefore, we analyzed the differences in enzymatic properties, microbial composition and metabolic function of three types of Daqu, namely high-, medium- and low-temperature Daqus (HTD, MTD and LTD), by combining chemical feature and multi-dimensional sequencing. The results showed that both liquefaction, saccharification, fermentation and esterification powers were remarkably weaker in HTD compared to MTD and LTD. Totally, 30 bacterial and 5 fungal phyla were identified and significant differences in community structures were also observed among samples, with Brevibacterium/Microascus, Pseudomonas, and Lactobacillus/Saccharomycopsis identified as biomarkers for HTD, MTD and LTD, respectively. Additionally, the importance of deterministic assembly in bacterial communities was proportional to the fermentation peak-temperature, while stochastic assembly dominated in fungal ones. Metagenomics analysis indicated eukaryota (>80 %, mainly Ascomycota) predominated in HTD and MTD while bacteria (54.3 %, mainly Actinobacteriota) were more abundant in LTD. However, the functional profiles and pathways of MTD and LTD were more similar, and the synthesis and metabolism of carbohydrates and amino acids were the crucial biological functions of all samples. Finally, the relationship between species and enzymes in different samples was constructed and the functional species in LTD and MTD were more diverse than HTD, which elucidated the functional species associated with enzyme activity in each type of Daqu. These results will greatly enrich our understanding of the core functional species in three typical Daqu, which provide available information for rational regulation of Daqu quality and the Baijiu fermentation.

Keywords: Daqu; Enzyme activity; Functional species; Metabolic pathway; Metagenomics.

MeSH terms

Alcoholic Beverages* / microbiology
Bacteria* / genetics
Bacteria* / metabolism
Fermentation
High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
Temperature