Spatially structured microbial consortia and their role in food fermentations

Sabine Michielsen, Gabriel T. Vercelli, Otto X. Cordero, Herwig Bachmann

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Microbial consortia are important for the fermentation of foods. They bring combined functionalities to the fermented product, but stability and product consistency of fermentations with complex consortia can be hard to control. Some of these consortia, such as water- and milk-kefir and kombucha, grow as multispecies aggregates or biofilms, in which micro-organisms taking part in a fermentation cascade are spatially organized. The spatial organization of micro-organisms in these aggregates can impact what metabolic interactions are realized in the consortia, ultimately affecting the growth dynamics and evolution of microbes. A better understanding of such spatially structured communities is of interest from the perspective of microbial ecology and biotechnology, as multispecies aggregates can be used to valorize energy-rich substrates, such as plant-based substrates or side streams from the food industry.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103102
Pages (from-to)1-8
Number of pages8
JournalCurrent Opinion in Biotechnology
Volume87
Early online date10 Mar 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Funding

SM and HB were financially supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) as part of the research program TTW with project number 19746. OXC and GTV were supported by the Simons Collaboration: Principles of Microbial Ecosystems (PriME) award number 542395.

FundersFunder number
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek542395, 19746

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