Traditional Korean Meju,a key ingredient for fermented soybean foods such as Doenjang and Ganjang,undergoes complex microbial fermentation driven by diverse bacteria and fungi.Although microorganisms are known to play...Traditional Korean Meju,a key ingredient for fermented soybean foods such as Doenjang and Ganjang,undergoes complex microbial fermentation driven by diverse bacteria and fungi.Although microorganisms are known to play essential roles in the flavor,safety,and nutritional quality of Meju,most studies relying on relative abun-dance data provide limited insight into their true interactions.This study investigated bacterial-fungal in-teractions during three stages of Meju fermentation using absolute abundance data derived from quantitative PCR(qPCR)integrated with amplicon-based sequencing.Physicochemical changes,including pH,water content,and amino nitrogen,were monitored to track fermentation progress.Amplicon-based sequencing revealed distinct patterns of relative abundance in bacterial and fungal communities,as assessed by Shannon and Chao1 indices.Bacillus dominated the bacterial community throughout the entire fermentation period,whereas Rhizopus and Mucor were predominant in the fungal community.Quantitative PCR analysis revealed a significant increase in microbial biomass,from 1.01×10^(8) to 2.15×10^(11) copies/g for bacteria and from 9.49×10^(6) to 2.53×10^(10) copies/g for fungi.Integration of qPCR-based quantitative data with relative abundance revealed a significant positive correlation between Bacillus and Rhizopus that was undetectable using relative data alone.These findings demonstrate that integrating absolute abundance with sequencing data provides novel insights into microbial dynamics and interkingdom interactions during Meju fermentation,contributing to a deeper understanding of fermentation ecology in soybean-based foods.展开更多
基金supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF)grant funded by the Korean government(MSIT)(RS-2023-00247945)by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF),funded by the Ministry of Education(RS-2025-25438539).
文摘Traditional Korean Meju,a key ingredient for fermented soybean foods such as Doenjang and Ganjang,undergoes complex microbial fermentation driven by diverse bacteria and fungi.Although microorganisms are known to play essential roles in the flavor,safety,and nutritional quality of Meju,most studies relying on relative abun-dance data provide limited insight into their true interactions.This study investigated bacterial-fungal in-teractions during three stages of Meju fermentation using absolute abundance data derived from quantitative PCR(qPCR)integrated with amplicon-based sequencing.Physicochemical changes,including pH,water content,and amino nitrogen,were monitored to track fermentation progress.Amplicon-based sequencing revealed distinct patterns of relative abundance in bacterial and fungal communities,as assessed by Shannon and Chao1 indices.Bacillus dominated the bacterial community throughout the entire fermentation period,whereas Rhizopus and Mucor were predominant in the fungal community.Quantitative PCR analysis revealed a significant increase in microbial biomass,from 1.01×10^(8) to 2.15×10^(11) copies/g for bacteria and from 9.49×10^(6) to 2.53×10^(10) copies/g for fungi.Integration of qPCR-based quantitative data with relative abundance revealed a significant positive correlation between Bacillus and Rhizopus that was undetectable using relative data alone.These findings demonstrate that integrating absolute abundance with sequencing data provides novel insights into microbial dynamics and interkingdom interactions during Meju fermentation,contributing to a deeper understanding of fermentation ecology in soybean-based foods.
