Perspectives on Microbiota of Fermented Foods, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Fermentation for Food and Beverages".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 March 2026 | Viewed by 818

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Food Science and Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, China
Interests: food biotechnology; microbial fermentation; food microbial safety control

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Guest Editor
School of Food Science and Engineering, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, China
Interests: food biomanufacturing; microbiology and metabolic engineering; probiotics and prebiotics; fermentation; microbial resources
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microbial fermentation is an important technique used for food preservation and processing that converts substrates, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, in raw materials into beneficial metabolites (organic acids, alcohols, amino acids, peptides, fatty acids, etc.) by inoculation of microorganisms for better nutritional composition, sensory, and functional properties. Fermented foods are typically initiated by natural inoculation, a fermentation starter (Qu), artificially added auxiliary strains, or in a pit rich in related microorganisms. In the brewing process, numerous microorganisms, including bacteria and fungi, may be involved cooperatively. In other words, the microbiota of fermented foods is the main driving force for the fermentation process. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to present recent advances in the microbiota of fermented foods. We encourage the submission of manuscripts that include, but are not limited to:

  • Application and development prospects of microbiota in fermented foods.
  • Differences in microbiota structure in fermented foods produced by traditional and industrial fermentation processes.
  • Reveal the relationship between microbiota and metabolic activities of fermented products.
  • Succession of microbiota biodiversity in fermented foods.
  • Screening and characteristics of functional microorganisms in fermented foods.
  • Effects of microorganisms on organoleptic, nutritional, and functional attributes during food fermentation.
  • Correlation of microorganisms with the environment and gut health.
  • Application of core microbes in enhancing the quality of fermented foods.

Dr. Junnan Xu
Prof. Dr. Haitian Fang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fermented food
  • microbial diversity
  • fermentation optimization
  • metabolic engineering
  • high-throughput screening
  • food microbiology
  • microbiota
  • flavors
  • microorganism application

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

16 pages, 2268 KB  
Article
Correlations Between Flavor Profile and Microbial Community Succession in Probiotic-Fermented Burdock Root
by Chunzhi Xie, Heng Yuan, Shuxin Shi, Mengying Xu, Wenting Shi, Nannan Yu, Jinhui Hou and Yu Wang
Fermentation 2025, 11(11), 604; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation11110604 - 22 Oct 2025
Viewed by 690
Abstract
Fresh burdock (Arctium lappa L.) roots were fermented with probiotic lactic acid bacteria, including Lactobacillus paracasei (L. paracasei), Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum), and Lactobacillus casei (L.casei). The dynamic changes in volatile flavor compounds (VFCs) and microbial [...] Read more.
Fresh burdock (Arctium lappa L.) roots were fermented with probiotic lactic acid bacteria, including Lactobacillus paracasei (L. paracasei), Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum), and Lactobacillus casei (L.casei). The dynamic changes in volatile flavor compounds (VFCs) and microbial community succession were compared during fermentation. Subsequently, correlations between bacteria and characteristic VFCs were analyzed, and potential functions were predicted. The results show that the types of VFCs increased from 25 to 54, and the total content increased from 7.852 ± 1.025 to 48.325 ± 0.624 mg/kg after fermentation for 7 days. Notably, esters and alcohols increased significantly. A total of 42 VFCs were identified as contributors to the overall flavor profile of the fermented burdock root. Among these, ethyl caproate, acetaldehyde, isoamyl acetate, hexaldehyde, phenylacetaldehyde, linalool, and 3-methylbutanol were regarded as the primary characteristic VFCs. Microbial composition analysis revealed three dominant phyla, two dominant genera, and three dominant species. Among them, L. paracasei and L. plantarum were the dominant species during fermentation. L. paracasei was positively correlated with multiple characteristic VFCs and was considered the core functional species in terms of flavor formation. Notably, L. paracasei exhibited a very strong correlation with acetaldehyde (ρ = 0.99). PICRUST2 function prediction further revealed that carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism were the core pathways of microbial metabolism and important sources of flavor precursors. This study demonstrates that lactic acid bacteria fermentation could markedly improve the flavor quality of burdock roots. Moreover, the formation of VFCs was closely correlated with complex microbial metabolism during fermentation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Perspectives on Microbiota of Fermented Foods, 2nd Edition)
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