Metagenomic analysis of bacterial diversity changes during vegetables fermentation using Sichuan pickle water as starter

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the bacterial diversity in Sichuan pickles during the fermentation started by mother water starter, in order to provide support for the quality control and functional bacterial screening in pickles.Samples during the fermentation were collected for genome extraction, and the V3 +V4 parts of 16 S r RNA of each sample's genome were amplified by PCR. The samples were then sequenced by Illumina miseqsequencing system. Bioinformatics was finally analyzed to compare bacterial deversity of the samples.The results showed that, the abundance of Weissella was 74.5% at the beginning of the fermentation but then decreased and remained stable at about 10%.After the start of the fermentation, the Lactobacillus strains took place to be the dominationated bacteria, with a content of 80% ~ 85%. These results indicated that during the fermentation, Weissella was the starter culture and Lactobacilli dominated the fermentation process afterwards. It can be concluded that Sichuan pickles were proved to be excellent microbial resources for the collection of probiotics including Weissella, Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Pediococcus and Leuconostoc strains.