Metabarcoding of the kombucha microbial community grown in different micro environments



Authors:
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Abstract:
Introducing the DNA metabarcoding analysis of probiotic microbial communities allowed getting insight into their functioning and establishing better control over the safety and efficacy of the probiotic communities. In this work, the kombucha poly-microbial probiotic community was analyzed to study its flexibility under different growth conditions. Environmental DNA sequencing revealed a complex and flexible composition of the kombucha microbial culture (KMC) constituting more bacterial and fungal organisms in addition to those found by cultural methods. The community comprised bacterial and yeast components, including cultured and uncultivable microorganisms. Culturing the KMC under different conditions revealed the core part of the community, which included acetobacteria of two genera Komagataeibacter (former Gluconacetobacter) and Gluconobacter, and representatives of several yeast genera among which Brettanomyces/Dekkera and Pichia (including former Issatchenkia) were dominant. Herbaspirillum spp. and Halomonas spp., which previously had not been described in KMC, were found to be minor but permanent members of the community. The community composition was dependent on the growth conditions. The bacterial component of KMC was relatively stable but may include additional member-lactobacilli. The yeast species composition was significantly variable. High-throughput sequencing showed the complexity and variability of KMC that may affect the quality of the probiotic drink. It was hypothesized that the kombucha core community might recruit some environmental bacteria, particularly lactobacilli, which potentially may contribute to the fermentative capacity of the probiotic drink. As many KMC-associated microorganisms cannot be cultured out of the community, a robust control for community composition should be provided by using DNA metabarcoding.

Keywords: kombucha microbial community, metabarcoding, pyrosequencing



Country: South Africa

Citation: AMB Express, 5(1), 124-124.

Study Mailing Address:
1 Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Unit, Department
of Biochemistry, University of Pretoria, Lynnwood Road, Hillcrest,
Pretoria 0002, South Africa

Date Updated: March 11, 2020

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