Evaluation of microbial diversity of Jiangshui from the Ningxia Hui autonomous region in China

ABSTRACT Jiangshui is a traditional spontaneously fermented food in Northwest China; however, there is a lack of relevant documentation of Jiangshui from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), which is an important region in Northwest China. This study used the MIDI microbial identification system (MIDI MIS) and found that bacteria accounted for the highest proportion in NHAR Jiangshui and further gram-positive bacteria were higher than gram-negative bacteria. Fungi were the second-largest proportion. Furthermore, Illumina Novaseq sequencing technology was used to examine the bacterial diversity in NHAR Jiangshui. Firmicutes and Proteobacteria were the dominant phyla and Lactobacillus was the dominant genus. Also, there were some opportunistic pathogens in minor proportion. More importantly, the samples from different regions and fermentation time showed insignificant differences in the bacterial community. This study presents a new insight of microbial community structure analysis of fermented foods.