Project description:The fermented and distilled Chinese alcoholic beverage strong flavor baijiu (SFB) gets its characteristic flavor during fermentation in cellars lined with pit mud. Microbes in the pit mud produce many key precursors of flavor esters. The over 20 year maturation time of natural pit mud have promoted attempts to produce artificial pit mud (APM) with shorter maturation time. However, knowledge on the molecular basis of APM microbial dynamics and associated functional variation during SFB brewing is limited, and the role of this variability in high quality SFB production remains poorly understood. We studied APM maturation in new cellars till the fourth brewing batch using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR and function prediction based on the sequencing results, and metaproteomics and metabolomics techniques. The results provide insight into global APM prokaryotic dynamics and their role in SFB production, which will be helpful for further optimization of APM culture technique and improvement of SFB quality.
Project description:In this study we investigated whether gut microbiota profile of Italian healthy volunteers could differ based on their geaographical origin. To this purpose, fecal samples were collected from 31 healthy individuals living in 3 different italian regions (Lombardy, North; Lazio, Center; Apulia, South) and their respective microbiota profiles were analyzed employing 16S metagenomic sequencing method. This study identifies differences in the gut microbiota content and richness among individuals with the same ethnicity coming from three different Italian regions.