Metabolomic Approaches to Study the Potential Inhibitory Effects of Plantaricin Q7 against Biofilm.

is a serious pathogen and can exacerbate harmful effects through the formation of biofilm. Inhibition of or reduction in biofilm is a promising strategy to control in the food industry. In our previous study, it was found that plantaricin Q7 produced by Q7 could inhibit and reduce biofilm, but the specific mechanism remains unclear. In this study, the inhibitive and reduced activity of plantaricin Q7 on biofilm was investigated by metabolomics. The results showed that plantaricin Q7 inhibited the synthesis of biofilm mainly through purine metabolism and glycerol phospholipid metabolism, and the key differential metabolites included acetylcholine and hypoxanthine with a decrease in abundance from 5.80 to 4.85. In addition, plantaricin Q7 reduced the formed biofilm by purine metabolism and arginine biosynthesis, and the main differential metabolites were N-acetylglutamate and D-ribose-1-phosphate with a decrease in abundance from 6.21 to 4.73. It was the first report that purine metabolism and amino acid metabolism were the common metabolic pathway for plantaricin Q7 to inhibit and reduce biofilm, which could be potential targets to control biofilm. A putative metabolic pathway for biofilm inhibition and reduction by plantaricin Q7 was proposed. These findings provided a novel strategy to control biofilm in food processing.