Cultivable microbial diversity, peptide profiles, and bio-functional properties in Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.

Introduction: Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) communities shape the sensorial and functional properties of artisanal hard-cooked and long-ripened cheeses made with raw bovine milk like Parmigiano Reggiano (PR) cheese. While patterns of microbial evolution have been well studied in PR cheese, there is a lack of information about how this microbial diversity affects the metabolic and functional properties of PR cheese.

Methods: To fill this information gap, we characterized the cultivable fraction of natural whey starter (NWS) and PR cheeses at different ripening times, both at the species and strain level, and investigated the possible correlation between microbial composition and the evolution of peptide profiles over cheese ripening.

Sour Beer as Bioreservoir of Novel Craft Ale Yeast Cultures.

The increasing demand for craft beer is driving the search for novel ale yeast cultures from brewing-related wild environments. The focus of bioprospecting for craft cultures is to identify feral yeasts suitable to imprint unique sensorial attributes onto the final product. Here, we integrated phylogenetic, genotypic, genetic, and metabolomic techniques to demonstrate that sour beer during aging in wooden barrels is a source of suitable craft ale yeast candidates.

Effect of Fermentation with Strains on In Vitro Gastro-Intestinal Digestion of Whey Protein Concentrates.

Three strains, namely RBC6, RBC20, and RBN16, were proven to release bioactive peptides during whey protein concentrate (WPC) fermentation, resulting in WPC hydrolysates with biological activities. However, these bioactive peptides can break down during gastro-intestinal digestion (GID), hindering the health-promoting effect of fermented WPC hydrolysates in vivo. In this work, the effect of simulated GID on three WPC hydrolysates fermented with strains, as well as on unfermented WPC was studied in terms of protein hydrolysis, biological activities, and peptidomics profiles, respectively.

Insights on the bacterial composition of Parmigiano Reggiano Natural Whey Starter by a culture-dependent and 16S rRNA metabarcoding portrait.

Natural whey starters (NWS) are undefined bacterial communities produced daily from whey of the previous cheese-making round, by application of high temperature. As a result, in any dairy plant, NWS are continuously evolving, undefined mixtures of several strains and/or species of lactic acid bacteria, whose composition and performance strongly depend on the selective pressure acting during incubation. While NWS is critical to assure consistency to cheese-making process, little is known about the composition, functional features, and plant-to-plant fluctuations.

Microbial Consortia Involved in Traditional Sicilian Sourdough: Characterization of Lactic Acid Bacteria and Yeast Populations.

Sourdough is one of the oldest starters traditionally used for making baked goods, offering several advantages to the sensory, rheology, and shelf life of final products. The present study investigated, for the first time, the microbiota of spontaneously fermented Maiorca dough samples collected from bakeries located in Sicily (Italy). Four sourdough samples (M1, M2, M3, and M4), were produced using Host.