Analysis of the microbial community structure of GujingGong liquor starter through culture-free approach

Molecular analysis of microbial community structure of GujingGong liquor starter has not been reported so far. 16S rDNA clone library technique was conducted to analysis the bacterial community diversity in high-temperature Daqu and medium-temperature starter of GuJingGong liquor. All clone strains were classified to 36 OTUs, belonging to Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and uncultured bacteria, of which, Firmicutes was the majority. Overall, the bacterial diversity of medium-temperature starter was significantly more complex than that of high-temperature starter. Thermoactinomyces sanguinis accounted for the main majority of the high-temperature starter strains. Bacterial diversity of the two medium-temperature starter samples was apparently different. Dominant bacteria of the sample S1 belong to Virgibacillus sp., accounting for 85.3% in total, in addition to a small amount of uncultured bacteria (12.9%). The dominant bacteria of the sample S2 were Lactobacillus (25.2%), Staphylococcus (14.3%), Bacillus (13.4%) and some uncultured bacteria (16.8%). There are a lot of potential new species that need to be further identified.