Abstract
This is the first report on the microbial diversity of xaj-pitha, a rice wine fermentation starter culture through a metagenomics approach involving Illumine-based whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing method. Metagenomic DNA was extracted from rice wine starter culture concocted by Ahom community of Assam and analyzed using a MiSeq® System. A total of 2,78,231 contigs, with an average read length of 640.13 bp, were obtained. Data obtained from the use of several taxonomic profiling tools were compared with previously reported microbial diversity studies through the culture-dependent and culture-independent method. The microbial community revealed the existence of amylase producers, such as Rhizopus delemar, Mucor circinelloides, and Aspergillus sp. Ethanol producers viz., Meyerozyma guilliermondii, Wickerhamomyces ciferrii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Candida glabrata, Debaryomyces hansenii, Ogataea parapolymorpha, and Dekkera bruxellensis, were found associated with the starter culture along with a diverse range of opportunistic contaminants. The bacterial microflora was dominated by lactic acid bacteria (LAB). The most frequent occurring LAB was Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus brevis, Leuconostoc lactis, Weissella cibaria, Lactococcus lactis, Weissella para mesenteroides, Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides, etc. Our study provided a comprehensive picture of microbial diversity associated with rice wine fermentation starter and indicated the superiority of metagenomic sequencing over previously used techniques.
Highlights
The methodology of rice wine preparation is more or less similar among most of the ethnic communities of Assam, a north-eastern state of India; fermentation starters (Assamese name xaj-pitha) and the substrates differ resulting in variance in the quality of the final product (Tanti et al 2010; Das et al 2012)
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. This is the first report on the microbial diversity of xaj-pitha, a rice wine fermentation starter culture through a metagenomics approach involving Illuminebased whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing method
Our study provided a comprehensive picture of microbial diversity associated with rice wine fermentation starter and indicated the superiority of metagenomic sequencing over previously used techniques
Summary
The methodology of rice wine preparation is more or less similar among most of the ethnic communities of Assam, a north-eastern state of India; fermentation starters (Assamese name xaj-pitha) and the substrates differ resulting in variance in the quality of the final product (Tanti et al 2010; Das et al 2012). The study revealed a remarkable diversity of fungal microflora among various samples; the bacterial community exhibited a rather ‘‘spontaneous’’ species composition among the collected starters. Cultureindependent approaches, such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)-based amplification and sequencing of 16S rRNA genes or Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE), have proven to be powerful tools in investigating different types of traditional fermentations (Meroth et al 2003; Prakitchaiwattana et al 2004; Rantsiou et al 2005; Haruta et al 2006), the technique is unable to reflect the overall microbial diversity due to low throughput (Ercolini 2004; Prakitchaiwattana et al 2004). We aimed at identifying the key microbial communities associated with traditional starter culture (xaj-pitha) and attempted to find relatedness of the microbiota with that of the previously analyzed starters from south-east Asia
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