Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Portici, Italy.
Task Force on Microbiome Studies, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
Appl Environ Microbiol. 2018 Dec 13;85(1). doi: 10.1128/AEM.02212-18. Print 2019 Jan 1.
Microbial spoilage of raw meat causes huge economic losses every year. An understanding of the microbial ecology associated with the spoilage and its dynamics during the refrigerated storage of meat can help in preventing and delaying the spoilage-related activities. The raw meat microbiota is usually complex, but only a few members will develop during storage and cause spoilage upon the pressure from several external factors, such as temperature and oxygen availability. We characterized the metagenome of beef packed aerobically or under vacuum during refrigerated storage to explore how different packaging conditions may influence the microbial composition and potential spoilage-associated activities. Different population dynamics and spoilage-associated genomic repertoires occurred in beef stored aerobically or in vacuum packaging. Moreover, the pangenomes of strains were extracted from metagenomes. We demonstrated the presence of specific, storage-driven strain-level profiles of , characterized by different gene repertoires and thus potentially able to act differently during meat spoilage. The results provide new knowledge on strain-level microbial ecology associated with meat spoilage and may be of value for future strategies of spoilage prevention and food waste reduction. This work provides insights on the mechanisms involved in raw beef spoilage during refrigerated storage and on the selective pressure exerted by the packaging conditions. We highlighted the presence of different microbial metagenomes during the spoilage of beef packaged aerobically or under vacuum. The packaging condition was able to select specific strains with distinctive genomic repertoires. This study may help in deciphering the behavior of different biomes directly in food and in understanding the specific contribution of different strains to food spoilage.
微生物对生肉的腐败每年都会造成巨大的经济损失。了解与腐败相关的微生物生态学及其在冷藏过程中的动态变化，可以帮助预防和延缓与腐败相关的活动。生肉微生物群通常很复杂，但只有少数成员会在储存过程中发展，并在几个外部因素（如温度和氧气供应）的压力下导致腐败。我们对有氧或真空包装的冷藏牛肉的宏基因组进行了表征，以探讨不同包装条件如何影响微生物组成和潜在的与腐败相关的活动。在有氧或真空包装的牛肉中，不同的种群动态和与腐败相关的基因组谱发生了变化。此外，从宏基因组中提取了菌株的泛基因组。我们证明了存在特定的、与储存相关的 菌株水平的特征，其特征是不同的基因库，因此在肉腐败过程中可能有不同的作用。研究结果为与肉腐败相关的菌株水平微生物生态学提供了新的知识，可能对未来的腐败预防和减少食物浪费策略具有价值。这项工作提供了关于冷藏过程中生牛肉腐败的机制以及包装条件施加的选择压力的新见解。我们强调了在有氧或真空包装的牛肉腐败过程中存在不同的微生物宏基因组。包装条件能够选择具有独特基因组谱的特定 菌株。这项研究可能有助于直接在食品中解析不同生物群的行为，并了解不同菌株对食品腐败的具体贡献。
