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Kombucha, historically an Asian tea-based fermented drink, has recently become trendy in Western countries. Producers claim it bears health-enhancing properties that may come from the tea or metabolites produced by its microbiome. Despite its long history of production, microbial richness and dynamics have not been fully unraveled, especially at an industrial scale. Moreover, the impact of tea type (green or black) on microbial ecology was not studied. Here, we compared microbial communities from industrial-scale black and green tea fermentations, still traditionally carried out by a microbial biofilm, using culture-dependent and metabarcoding approaches. Dominant bacterial species belonged to Acetobacteraceae and to a lesser extent Lactobacteriaceae, while the main identified yeasts corresponded to Dekkera, Hanseniaspora and Zygosaccharomyces during all fermentations. Species richness decreased over the 8-day fermentation. Among acetic acid bacteria, Gluconacetobacter europaeus, Gluconobacter oxydans, G. saccharivorans and Acetobacter peroxydans emerged as dominant species. The main lactic acid bacteria, Oenococcus oeni, was strongly associated with green tea fermentations. Tea type did not influence yeast community, with Dekkera bruxellensis, D. anomala, Zygosaccharomyces bailii and Hanseniaspora valbyensis as most dominant. This study unraveled a distinctive core microbial community which is essential for fermentation control and could lead to Kombucha quality standardization.

International audience; Tomme d'Orchies is an artisanal pressed and uncooked cheese produced and marketed in the north of France. This study aimed at showing the fungal microbiota evolution of this cheese using a metagenetic based Illumina technology targeting the ITS2 domain of 5.8S fungal rDNAs. To this end, samples were taken from the rind and the core of different cheeses, after 0, 1, 3, 7, 14 and 21 days of ripening. The data underpinned the prevalence of Yarrowia lipolytica and Galactomyces geotrichum for both microbiotas. Unusual species including Clavispora lusitaniae, Kazachstania unispora and Cladosporiwn cladosporioides were also detected, but their origins remain to be ascertained. The metagenomic revealed also the presence of Kluyveromyces and Debaryomyces species.

Campylobacteriosis is the most frequently reported zoonotic disease in humans in the EU since 2005. As chicken meat is the main source of contamination, reducing the level of Campylobacter in broiler chicken will lower the risk to consumers. The aim of this project was to evaluate the ability of Lactobacillus salivarius SMXD51 to control Campylobacter jejuni in broilers and to investigate the mechanisms that could be involved. Thirty broilers artificially contaminated with C. jejuni were treated by oral gavage with MRS broth or a bacterial suspension (107CFU) of Lb. salivarius SMXD51 (SMXD51) in MRS broth. At 14 and 35days of age, Campylobacter and Lb. salivarius loads were assessed in cecal contents. The impact of the treatment on the avian gut microbiota at day 35 was also evaluated. At day 14, the comparison between the control and treated groups showed a significant reduction (P

International audience; Kluyveromyces marxianus S-2-05 and Kluyveromyces lactis S-3-05 were recently isolated from a traditional French cheese, Tomme d'Orchies, and characterized here for their advantages using a different application perspective. First, we established their anti-Salmonella activity and downregulation of the virulence sopD gene of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Typhimurium, mainly in the presence of K. marxianus S-2-05. In addition to their antagonism, these non-Saccharomyces yeasts were able to survive under conditions mimicking the gastrointestinal environment and to form biofilms on an abiotic device such as polystyrene. These strains also displayed highly hydrophilic cell wall surfaces properties and capacity for adhesion to intestinal Caco-2 cells, thus enhancing their potential as probiotic strains.

The study of microbial ecosystems in artisanal foodstuffs is important to complete in order to unveil its diversity. The number of studies performed on dairy products has increased during the last decade, particularly those performed on milk and cheese derivative products. In this work, we investigated the bacterial content of "Tomme d'Orchies" cheese, an artisanal pressed and uncooked French cheese. To this end, a metagenetic analysis, using Illumina technology, was utilized on samples taken from the surface and core of the cheese at 0, 1, 3, 14 and 21 days of ripening process. In addition to the classical microbiota found in cheese, various strains likely from environmental origin were identified. A large difference between the surface and the core content was observed within samples withdrawn during the ripening process. The main species encountered in the core of the cheese were Lactococcus spp. and Streptococcus spp., with an inversion of this ratio during the ripening process. Less than 2.5% of the whole population was composed of strains issued from environmental origin, as Lactobacillales, Corynebactenum and Brevibacterium. In the core, about 85% of the microbiota was attributed to the starters used for the cheese making. In turn, the microbiota of the surface contained less than 30% of these starters and interestingly displayed more diversity. The predominant genus was Corynebacterium sp., likely originating from the environment. The less abundant microbiota of the surface was composed of Bifidobacteria, Brevibacterium and Micrococcales. To summarize, the "Tomme d'Orchies" cheese displayed a high diversity of bacterial species, especially on the surface, and this diversity is assumed to arise from the production environment and subsequent ripening process.

International audience; Soil microorganisms such as mycorrhizae and plant-growth-promoting rhizobacteria have beneficial effects on crop productivity. Agricultural practices are known to impact soil microbial communities, but past studies examining this impact have focused mostly on one or two taxonomic levels, such as phylum and class, thus missing potentially relevant information from lower levels. Therefore, we propose here an original, sub-phylum method for studying how agricultural practices modify microbial communities. This method involves exploiting the available sequence information at the lowest taxonomic level attainable for each operational taxonomic unit. In order to validate this novel method, we assessed microbial community composition using 454 pyrosequencing of 16S and 28S rRNA genes, and then we compared the results with results of a phylum-level analysis. Agricultural practices included conventional tillage, reduced tillage, residue removal, and residue retention. Results show that, at the lowest taxonomic level attainable, tillage is the main factor influencing both bacterial community composition, accounting for 13 % of the variation, and fungal community composition, accounting for 18 % of the variation. On the other hand, phylum-level analysis failed to reveal any effect of soil practice on bacterial community composition and missed the fact that different members of the same phylum responded differently to tillage practice. For instance, the fungal phylum Chytridiomycota showed no impact of soil treatment, while sub-phylum-level analysis revealed an impact of tillage practice on the Chytridiomycota sub-groups Gibberella, which includes a notorious wheat pathogen, and Trichocomaceae. This clearly demonstrates the necessity of exploiting the information obtainable at sub-phylum level when assessing the effects of agricultural practice on microbial communities.

Metagenomics has proven to be a powerful tool in exploring a large diversity of natural environments such as air, soil, water, and plants, as well as various human microbiota (e.g. digestive tract, lungs, skin). DNA sequencing techniques are becoming increasingly popular and less and less expensive. Given that high-throughput DNA sequencing approaches have only recently started to be used to decipher food microbial ecosystems, there is a significant growth potential for such technologies in the field of food microbiology. The aim of this review is to present a survey of recent food investigations via metagenomics and to illustrate how this approach can be a valuable tool in the better characterization of foods and their transformation, storage and safety. Traditional food in particular has been thoroughly explored by global approaches in order to provide information on multi-species and multi-organism communities.

International audience; Although many bacteria are ureolytic, and in some cases urease acts as a virulence factor, the urease phenotype has not been analyzed in the anaerobic pathogen Clostridium perfringens. In this study, approximately 2% of C. perfringens strains, representing the principal biotypes, were found to harbor the urease structural genes, ureABC, and these were localized on large plasmids that often encode, in addition, the lethal epsilon or iota toxins or the enterotoxin. This represents the first report of a plasmid-encoded urease in a gram-positive bacterium. The C. perfringens enzyme was highly similar to the ureases of other bacteria and cross-reacted with antibodies raised against the urease purified from Helicobacter pylori. Urease production was inhibited by urea and induced under growth conditions where the availability of nitrogen sources was limiting. To date, this form of regulation has been observed only for chromosomal ureABC genes.