Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Vol.105, No.6, 2307-2318, 2021
Shifts of microbiota during cheese production: impact on production and quality
The high-throughput DNA sequencing (HTS) method is used to identify microbes in cheese and their potential functional properties. The technique can be applied to the microbiota of the cheese processing environment, raw milk, curd, whey, and starter cultures, and be used to improve the quality, safety, and other physicochemical properties of the final product. The HTS method is also utilized to study the microbiota shift of different types of cheeses during processing, as the composition and functional properties of the microbiome provide unique characteristics to different cheeses. Although there are several reviews that focused on microbiota of various types of cheeses, this review focuses on evaluating the microbiota shift of different types of cheese production and highlights key bacteria in each step of the processing as well as microbiota of various types of cheeses.