Evaluating the flavor and divergent bacterial communities in corn-based zha-chili

Zha-chili is a naturally fermented traditional food from central southern China.Corn-based zha-chili is one of the most popular varieties with a special flavor.To investigate its distinct microbiome,corn-based zha-chili samples were collected and investigated using both high-throughput sequencing and culture-dependent method.Subsequently,E-nose and E-tongue sensors were used to evaluate the overall sensory profile.We found that the bacterial communities present in zha-chili samples from the two regions were significantly different(P<0.05).Companilactobacillus,Lactiplantibacillus,and Corynebacterium were found to be the dominant genera common to samples from both regions.Among these,lactic acid bacteria were the most dominant.Biomarker genera were Ligilactobacillus,Lactobacillus,and Levilactobacillus(Huaihua)and Pantoea,Lactiplantibacillus,and Weissella(Songtao).Using culture-dependent methods,the most dominant genus Companilactobacillus was found to comprise Companilactobacillus alimentarius and Companilactobacillus futsaii.The sensory profile was also characterized.This indicated that zha-chili from the two regions could be discriminated by sourness and aftertaste-B(E-taste),and W1C,W3C,W5C,W1S,W2S,W5S,and W2W(E-nose).Correlation analysis suggested that the dominant genera might not affect the aroma quality of corn-based zha-chili,whereas they were related to taste quality.Levilactobacillus and Ligilactobacillus were positively correlated with the characteristic taste indices and negatively correlated with the off-flavor indices.Another dominant genus,Kocuria was positively correlated with umami and richness(P<0.05).Our results could provide a basis for supporting zha-chili production and help the isolation of appropriate lactic acid bacteria from corn-based zha-chili.