Microbial Composition Analysis Of Rice Koji Using Single-molecule Real-time Sequencing

Koji is Japanese traditional fermented starter has been used for centuries. A large amount of fermented food made by koji, such as sake, miso and soy sauce. This study used single molecular real-time sequencing technology to investigate the bacterial and fungal community diversity of three Japanese koji samples. After sequencing a total number of 39,121 high quality sequences were generated, include 14,354 bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences and 24.767 fungal 18s rRNA and ITS gene sequences high quality reads, sequences analysis grouped the high quality gene sequences into five bacteria and two fungi plylum, which dominating by Proteobacteria and Ascomycota respectively. Moreover, at the genus level, Ochrobactrum and Wickerhamomyces were the most abundant bacterial and fungi genus. At the species level, Ochrobacterum lunpi and Wickerhamomyces anomalus were the most abundant bacterial and fungi species. The study also showed that single molecular real-time sequencing could provide a deeper understanding of microbial composition and in addition with the useful knowledge for further studies about the traditional fermented foods.