Abstract
Microorganisms in pit mud are the essential factor determining the style of strong flavor Baijiu. The spatial distribution characteristics of fungal communities and aroma in the pit mud for strong flavor Baijiu from Xinjiang, China, were investigated using Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing and electronic nose technology. A total of 138 fungal genera affiliated with 10 fungal phyla were identified from 27 pit mud samples; of these, Saccharomycopsis, Aspergillus, and Apiotrichum were the core fungal communities, and Aspergillus and Apiotrichum were the hubs that maintain the structural stability of fungal communities in pit mud. The fungal richness and diversity, as well as aroma of pit mud, showed no significant spatial heterogeneity, but divergences in pit mud at different depths were mainly in pH, total acid, and high abundance fungi. Moisture, NH4+, and lactate were the main physicochemical factors involved in the maintenance of fungal stability and quality in pit mud, whereas pH had only a weak effect on fungi in pit mud. In addition, the fungal communities of pit mud were not significantly associated with the aroma. The results of this study provide a foundation for exploring the functional microorganisms and dissecting the brewing mechanism of strong flavor Baijiu in Xinjiang, and also contributes to the improvement of pit mud quality by bioaugmentation and controlling environmental physicochemical factors.
Highlights
Chinese Baijiu is one of the six most renowned distilled liquors in the world, and, according to their flavor characteristics, 12 flavor types, such as strong flavor, sauce flavor, and light flavor, have been formed (Liu M.-K. et al, 2017)
The purpose of this study is to use high-throughput sequencing technology to comprehensively dissect the fungal community structure in Pit mud (PM) at different depths of the special brewing environment of Strong-flavor Baijiu (SFB) in Xinjiang, revealing its correlation with physicochemical factors as well as aroma, which would lay a foundation for directional screening and deep mining of characteristic microbial resources in special brewing habitats for SFB, and provide a theoretical basis for realizing the modification of microbiota to improve Baijiu quality
Based on the extraction of metagenomic DNA from PM Samples, Illumina MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technology was applied, and a dataset including 1,394,672 high-quality reads of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rRNA gene was generated from 27 PM samples, with an average of 51,655 ± 13,181 ITS rRNA gene reads per sample
Summary
Chinese Baijiu is one of the six most renowned distilled liquors in the world, and, according to their flavor characteristics, 12 flavor types, such as strong flavor, sauce flavor, and light flavor, have been formed (Liu M.-K. et al, 2017). Strong-flavor Baijiu (SFB) is a typical representative of Chinese Baijiu, and has a market share of over 70% in China (Zhao et al, 2012; Tao et al, 2014; Liu M.-K. et al, 2017). It is a Baijiu made from grains (sorghum, wheat, corn, rice, etc.) by the traditional solid-state fermentation, distillation, aging, and blending, with ethyl hexanoate. The microbial species, quantity, community structure, and diversity as well as their interactions directly affect the microecosystem and quality of PM (Liu M.-K. et al, 2017; Guan et al, 2020)
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