Metagenomics Analysis of Sourdough Microbiota

The sourdough fermentation process is conducted by more than 50 bacterial genera, mostly homo and hetero-fermentative. In addition, over 35 yeasts species are present in the sourdough metacommunity, with Saccharomyces cerevisiae as the dominant yeast. Due to the high diversity of this ecosystem, there is a need to investigate the resilience and performance of the metacommunity during sourdough fermentation. Thus, this chapter describes the metagenomic approach as a strategy to classify dominants, sub-dominants, and satellites, highlighting their synergy. Two metagenomics approaches were considered: (i) amplicon sequencing to give a taxonomy profile and (ii) shotgun analysis, which allows a genome comparison among the species annotated. Moreover, the functional annotation can be correlated with the presence/absence of these microorganisms, given arising to new discussions about the contribution of each species over the fermentation.