Interactive mechanism-guided microbial interaction dynamics in food fermentations: Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts as a case example

Abstract

Microbial interactions play key roles in ecological fermentation, species evolution, and flavor formation during the production of fermented foods. However, the dynamics of microbial interactions and their regulators in these spontaneous fermentations remain unclear. In this study, we carefully reviewed the core lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts and their interactions distributed in fermented foods worldwide. Furthermore, we indicated that the interactive mechanisms (cross-feeding, nutritional competition, and quorum sensing) drove the dynamics of microbial interactions to affect the quality and flavor formation in food fermentation. Moreover, we proposed the regulation of interactive mechanisms to monitor and improve microbial interactions and food fermentation through the selection of initial strains, sequencing of inoculations, and construction of synthetic micro-ecology. Therefore, we suspected that the regulation of microbial interactions shed light on the development of flavor and healthy-oriented food production through the selection of interactive mechanisms in the modern food industry.