Analysis of the Bacterial Communities in Two Liquors of Soy Sauce Aroma as Revealed by High-Throughput Sequencing of the 16S rRNA V4 Hypervariable Region

Jing Tang,Xiaoxin Tang,Ming Tang,Xiaorong Xu,Yin Yi,Ximin Zhang

doi:10.1155/2017/6271358

Abstract

Chinese liquor is one of the world's oldest distilled alcoholic beverages and an important commercial fermented product in China. The Chinese liquor fermentation process has three stages: making Daqu (the starter), stacking fermentation on the ground, and liquor fermentation in pits. We investigated the bacterial diversity of Maotai and Guotai Daqu and liquor fermentation using high-throughput sequencing of the V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene. A total of 70,297 sequences were obtained from the Daqu samples and clustered into 17 phyla. The composition of the bacterial communities in the Daqu from these two soy sauce aroma-style Chinese liquors was the same, although some bacterial species changed in abundance. Between the Daqu and liquor fermentation samples, 12 bacterial phyla increased. The abundance of Lactobacillus and Pseudomonas increased in the liquor fermentation. This study has used high-throughput sequencing to provide new insights into the bacterial composition of the Chinese liquor Daqu and fermentation. Similarities in the distribution of bacteria in the soy sauce aroma-style Chinese liquors Daqu suggest that the abundance of bacteria might be generally concerned to other liquor.

Highlights

Fermentation is a well-known ancient technique that uses microorganism to process and preserve food
The Chao value and Shannon index, which reflect the α-diversity of bacterial communities, showed no significant differences between the Guotai Daqu and the Maotai Daqu
Prior studies on the Chinese liquor fermentation process have focused on a limited number of isolated samples or microbial diversity examined using 16S rRNA gene library analysis and PCR-DGGE

Summary

Introduction

Fermentation is a well-known ancient technique that uses microorganism to process and preserve food. Chinese liquor is one of the six well-known distillates in the world. It has a long history of production and is produced through unique a fermentation process. It is typically produced from cereals, such as sorghum and rice, via the solid-state fermentation of grain. Chinese liquor has five main styles: strong aroma, light aroma, soy sauce aroma, sweet honey, and miscellaneous. Maotai and Guotai are Chinese liquors famous for their soy sauce aroma. Maotai-flavor liquor is as symbolic a drink in China as whisky is in Scotland and brandy in France [1,2,3]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion