Abstract
Beef is one of the most consumed food worldwide, and it is prone to spoilage by bacteria. This risk could be caused by resident microbiota and their alterations in fresh beef meat during processing. However, scarce information is available regarding potential spoilage factors due to resident microbiota in fresh beef meat. In this study, we analyzed the microbiota composition and their predicted functions on fresh beef meat. A total of 120 beef meat samples (60 fresh ground and 60 non-ground beef samples) were collected from three different sites in South Korea on different months, and the microbiota were analyzed by the MiSeq system. Our results showed that although the microbiota in beef meat were varied among sampling site and months, the dominant phyla were the same with shared core bacteria. Notably, psychrotrophic genera, related to spoilage, were detected in all samples, and their prevalence increased significantly in July. These genera could inhibit the growth of other microbes with using glucose by fermentation. The results of this study extend our understanding of initial microbiota in fresh beef meat and potential functions influencing spoilage and can be useful to develop the preventive measures to reduce the spoilage of beef meat products.
Highlights
Beef is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, including Korea (Cho et al, 2010), beef products are highly perishable (Doulgeraki et al, 2012)
This study aimed to analyze the microbiota composition in fresh beef meat and their potential functions influencing the spoilage of meat and the alteration of microbiota during further processing
The numbers of observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were higher in the samples collected in July than in January (24,559 ± 1,922; p < 0.0001)
Summary
Beef is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, including Korea (Cho et al, 2010), beef products are highly perishable (Doulgeraki et al, 2012). Recent studies using high-throughput sequencing methods have reported the presence of meat spoilage-related microorganisms and pathogens during processing steps or under different storage conditions (De Filippis et al, 2013; Hultman et al, 2015; Stoops et al, 2015; Yang et al, 2016). These studies focused on specific bacteria and provided limited information on the Microbiota in Fresh Beef Meat overall microbial composition of beef meat. Analyzing the whole microbiota associated with beef is essential to understanding the spoilage risk of fresh beef meat
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