Application of Microorganisms and Enzymes in Fermentation and Food Flavor

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Biotechnology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 834

Special Issue Editors

School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Interests: laccase production; enzymes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Interests: screening and modification of extreme microorganisms and enzymes; structure and function of enzyme; controlled enzymolysis technology; fermentation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing demand for high-quality foods from consumers, the development of novel strategies in food processing has attracted significant interest from researchers. For this purpose, microorganisms have been applied in fermented food to produce multisensory flavors and/or bioactive compounds, following which the stability of food preservation may also be improved. The control of the microbiome and its key enzymes is essential for the production of fermented foods. As well as microorganisms, enzymatic processing is an efficient method for producing healthy food with a high quality. Enzymatic treatment can enhance the quality of foods directly or remove off-flavors or hazardous ingredients to improve the palatability, safety and stability of foods indirectly. Macrobiomolecules in foods can also be transformed or hydrolyzed into functional ingredients, which are beneficial for human health beyond nutrition.

Therefore, this Special Issue of Foods, titled “Application of Microorganisms and Enzymes in Fermentation and Food Flavor”, focuses on current advances in this area, such as new microbial strains with the ability to produce flavors or bioactive compounds, food fermentation processes, the identification and bioactivity of functional compounds in fermented foods, enzymatic processes in foods, and novel apparatuses for fermentation or enzymatic catalysis during food processing. We kindly invite you to submit original review/research articles with novel ideas/concepts related to this topic.

Dr. Feng Wang
Dr. Xianli Gao
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • microorganisms
  • enzymes
  • fermented food
  • fermentation process
  • food
  • flavor
  • enzymatic catalysis
  • bioactive compounds

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 3885 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Core Functional Microbiota Related to Flavor Compounds in Douchi from the Sichuan–Chongqing Region
by Dawei Tu, Junhan Kang, Qingqing Li, Meilin Deng, Meiyan Liu, Wenjun Liu, Jian Ming, Margaret Brennan, Charles Brennan and Linfeng You
Foods 2025, 14(5), 810; https://doi.org/10.3390/foods14050810 - 26 Feb 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 541
Abstract
Douchi is a traditional Chinese fermented soybean product. In the Sichuan–Chongqing region, Mucor-type douchi was particularly famous for its distinctive flavor. Nevertheless, the association between microorganisms and douchi flavor is still poorly understood. In this study, high-throughput sequencing, amino acid analysis, and [...] Read more.
Douchi is a traditional Chinese fermented soybean product. In the Sichuan–Chongqing region, Mucor-type douchi was particularly famous for its distinctive flavor. Nevertheless, the association between microorganisms and douchi flavor is still poorly understood. In this study, high-throughput sequencing, amino acid analysis, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were used to investigate the bacterial and fungal profiles as well as the flavor compounds (sixteen amino acids and one-hundred volatile flavor compounds) of seven different types of douchi. High levels of glutamic and aspartic acids were observed. Microbial analysis found that Bacillus, Tetragenococcus, Weissella, Aspergillus, Mucor, and Penicillium were the prime microorganisms. In total, 100 volatile components were detected; however, none of them was common to all the douchi products, although most volatile components had the aromas of flowers, fruits, caramel, and cocoa. An analysis of the flavor compounds was conducted using two-way orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (O2PLS-DA). Based on the analysis, it was found that Glu had negative correlations with most microorganisms, and Aspergillus had positive correlations with 2-pentylfuran and phenylacetaldehyde. This study provides a theoretical foundation for the regulation and enhancement of douchi flavor. Full article
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