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 language | English |
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Article number | 103102 |
Pages (from-to) | 1-8 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Current Opinion in Biotechnology |
Volume | 87 |
Early online date | 10 Mar 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 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.
Funders | Funder number |
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Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | 542395, 19746 |