Sourdough is one of the oldest examples of natural starters, mostly used for making fermented baked goods as an alternative to baker's yeast and chemical leavening. Almost 30 years of research have ...accumulated showing its performance. Time is mature to elaborate collectively these data and to draw conclusions, which would represent milestones for scientists, industries and consumers.
With the scope of highlighting its microbiological, biochemical, technological and nutritional potential, we used “sourdough” as the only keyword and the PRISMA flow diagram to retrieve, select and systematically review 1230 peer reviewed research articles from four databases (Google Scholar, Scopus, PubMed and ScienceDirect).
The literature states that sourdough baked goods underwent characterization in almost 50 countries and all continents, mainly dealing with salty (breads and substitutes) and sweet products. Converging data defined optimal use conditions, most common microbiological and biochemical characteristics, criteria for selecting and re-using starters, and versatility of sourdough for making baked goods with a relevant number of flour species/varieties and agro-food by-products. Because of the unique microbial composition and functionality, sourdough has claimed as an irreplaceable starter for improving the sensory, rheology and shelf life attributes of baked goods. The most recent literature showed how the sourdough fermentation mainly increased mineral bioavailability, enabled fortification with dietary fibers, lowered glycemic index, improved protein digestibility and decreased the content of anti-nutritional factors. This knowledge is solid for delivering to industries and consumers, and to face new research challenges starting from a consolidated state of the art.
•State-of-the-art for sourdough fermentation.•Microbiological, biochemical, technological and nutritional potential of sourdough.•Sourdough as an alternate to baker's yeast in baked goods.•Industrial relevance and consumer acceptance of sourdough.
The quality of some leavened, sourdough baked goods is not always consistent, unless a well propagated sourdough starter culture is used for the dough fermentation. Among the different types of ...sourdough used, the traditional sourdough has attracted the interest of researchers, mainly because of its large microbial diversity, especially with respect to lactic acid bacteria. Variation in this diversity and the factors that cause it will impact on quality and is the subject of this review.
Sourdough microbial diversity is mainly caused by the following factors: (i) sourdough is obtained through spontaneous, multi-step fermentation; (ii) it is propagated using flour, whose nutrient content may vary according to the batch and to the crop, and which is naturally contaminated by microorganisms; and (iii) it is propagated under peculiar technological parameters, which vary depending on the historical and cultural background and type of baked good. In the population dynamics leading from flour to mature sourdough, lactic acid bacteria (several species of Lactobacillus sp., Leuconostoc sp., and Weissella sp.) and yeasts (mainly Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida sp.) outcompete other microbial groups contaminating flour, and interact with each other at different levels. Ecological parameters qualitatively and quantitatively affecting the dominant sourdough microbiota may be classified into specific technological parameters (e.g., percentage of sourdough used as inoculum, time and temperature of fermentation) and parameters that are not fully controlled by those who manage the propagation of sourdough (e.g., chemical, enzyme and microbial composition of flour).
Although some sourdoughs have been reported to harbour a persistent dominant microbiota, the stability of sourdough ecosystem during time is debated. Indeed, several factors may interfere with the persistence of species and strains associations that are typical of a given sourdough: metabolic adaptability to the stressing conditions of sourdough, nutritional and antagonistic interactions among microorganisms, intrinsic robustness of microorganisms, and existence of a stable house microbiota.
Further studies have to be performed in order to highlight hidden mechanisms underlying the microbial structure and stability of sourdough. The comprehension of such mechanisms would be helpful to assess the most appropriate conditions that allow keeping a given traditional sourdough as a stable microbial ecosystem, thus preserving, during time, the typical traits of the resulting product.
•Lactic acid bacteria and yeasts dominate traditional sourdoughs.•Different specific technological parameters lead to sourdough microbial diversity.•Microbial stability is not ensured by application of constant technology parameters.•Flour and house microbiota affect microbial stability of traditional sourdough.•Succession of microorganisms causes variations of sourdough performances over time.
Food waste (FW) represents a global and ever-growing issue that is attracting more attention due to its environmental, ethical, social and economic implications. Although a valuable quantity of ...bioactive components is still present in the residuals, nowadays most FW is destined for animal feeding, landfill disposal, composting and incineration. Aiming to valorize and recycle food byproducts, the development of novel and sustainable strategies to reduce the annual food loss appears an urgent need. In particular, plant byproducts are a plentiful source of high-value compounds that may be exploited as natural antioxidants, preservatives and supplements in the food industry, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the main bioactive compounds in fruit, vegetable and cereal byproducts is provided. Additionally, the natural and suitable application of tailored enzymatic treatments and fermentation to recover high-value compounds from plant byproducts is discussed. Based on these promising strategies, a future expansion of green biotechnologies to revalorize the high quantity of byproducts is highly encouraging to reduce the food waste/losses and promote benefits on human health.
The drivers for the establishment and composition of the sourdough microbiota, with particular emphasis on lactic acid bacteria, are reviewed and discussed. More than 60 different species of ...lactobacilli were identified from sourdoughs, showing the main overlapping between sourdough and human intestine ecosystems. The microbial kinetics during sourdough preparation was described by several studies using various methodological approaches, including culture-dependent and -independent (e.g., high throughput sequencing), and metabolite and meta-transcriptome analyses. Although the abundant microbial diversity harbored by flours, a succession of dominating and sub-dominating populations of lactic acid bacteria suddenly occurred during sourdough propagation, leading to the progressive assembly of the bacterial community. The contribution of all the potential sources (house microbiota, flour, types of flours and additional ingredients) for contaminating lactic acid bacteria was compared with the aim to find overlapping or specific routes that affect the sourdough microbiota. Once established and mature, pros and cons regarding the stability of the sourdough lactic acid bacteria biota were also reviewed, showing contradictory results, which were mainly dependent on the species/strains.
Probably, the future research efforts should be dedicated to decrease the sources/drivers of noticeable variation rather than to full standardization of the process for sourdough preparation and use.
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•Plant fermentation is like a metabolic labyrinth undertaken by bacteria.•Omics approaches unraveled the metabolic traits of bacteria to adapt to plants.•Most of the winding metabolic ...pathways involve phenolic compounds.•Fermented plant foods are enriched with high bioavailable bioactive compounds.•Fermentation of plant matrices result in low amounts of anti-nutritional factors.
Even though lactic acid bacteria are only a small part of the plant autochthonous microbiota, they represent the most important microbes having the capability to promote significant changes in the health-promoting properties of plant foods. Owing to the variety of plant chemical components and the possible pathways for bioconversion, plant fermentation is like a metabolic labyrinth undertaken by bacteria. The winding metabolic pathways involve several secondary plant metabolites (e.g. phenolics). The success of these paths is connected to the adaptive growth and survival of lactic acid bacteria. A panel of various interacting omics approaches unraveled the specific traits of lactic acid bacteria to adapt to plants, which allow the optimal design of fermentation strategies for targeted raw matrices.
The metabolism of hydroxycinnamic acids by strictly heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria (19 strains) was investigated as a potential alternative energy route. Lactobacillus curvatus PE5 was the ...most tolerant to hydroxycinnamic acids, followed by strains of Weissella spp., Lactobacillus brevis, Lactobacillus fermentum, and Leuconostoc mesenteroides, for which the MIC values were the same. The highest sensitivity was found for Lactobacillus rossiae strains. During growth in MRS broth, lactic acid bacteria reduced caffeic, p-coumaric, and ferulic acids into dihydrocaffeic, phloretic, and dihydroferulic acids, respectively, or decarboxylated hydroxycinnamic acids into the corresponding vinyl derivatives and then reduced the latter compounds to ethyl compounds. Reductase activities mainly emerged, and the activities of selected strains were further investigated in chemically defined basal medium (CDM) under anaerobic conditions. The end products of carbon metabolism were quantified, as were the levels of intracellular ATP and the NAD(+)/NADH ratio. Electron and carbon balances and theoretical ATP/glucose yields were also estimated. When CDM was supplemented with hydroxycinnamic acids, the synthesis of ethanol decreased and the concentration of acetic acid increased. The levels of these metabolites reflected on the alcohol dehydrogenase and acetate kinase activities. Overall, some biochemical traits distinguished the common metabolism of strictly heterofermentative strains: main reductase activity toward hydroxycinnamic acids, a shift from alcohol dehydrogenase to acetate kinase activities, an increase in the NAD(+)/NADH ratio, and the accumulation of supplementary intracellular ATP. Taken together, the above-described metabolic responses suggest that strictly heterofermentative lactic acid bacteria mainly use hydroxycinnamic acids as external acceptors of electrons.
Cheeses are inherently microbiologically and biochemically dynamic. Numerous biotic and abiotic drivers govern the establishment and assembly of a core microbiota in cheese, which, for ...internally-ripened cheeses, having an intermediate to long period of ripening, consists of starter and non-starter lactic acid bacteria (SLAB and NSLAB). The management of this dynamic ecosystem has to consider this core as a super-organism, which results from the sums of microbial metabolisms and interactions among individual microbes.
This review focuses on all presumptive drivers, raw and pasteurized milk, farming system and house microbiota, and intrinsic and extrinsic factors during cheese manufacture and ripening, which qualitatively and mainly depending on the farm management system and cheese variety may influence the populations of SLAB and NSLAB. The interactions between these two microbial groups are described also.
The cheese ecosystem shows a variable flux of its core microbiota from milking through manufacture to ripening. Many and diverse drivers establish and assembly the lactic acid bacteria biota. If such drivers are efficient to guarantee microbial and cheese diversities, on the other hand, their control is the fundamental pre-requisite to synchronize and balance microbiological events. The methodological approaches (e.g., omics techniques and integrated system biology) have markedly improved to concretize this ambitious goal. Facing and improving the knowledge on the main drivers, the current step should focus on a unique puzzle of coexisting species/biotypes likely a super-organism, whose guide has to consider all casehardened microbial elements.
•Cheeses are microbiologically and biochemically dynamic.•Biotic and abiotic drivers govern the establishment/assembly of a core microbiota.•The core microbiota consists of starter and non-starter lactic acid bacteria.•The sums of microbial metabolisms and interactions result in a super-organism to be driven.•All presumptive drivers that influence the core microbiota are described.
Cereal-based foods represent a very important source of biological as well as of cultural diversity, as testified by the wide range of derived fermented products. A trend that is increasingly ...attracting bakery industries as well as consumers is the use of non-conventional flours for the production of novel products, characterised by peculiar flavour and better nutritional value. Lactic acid bacteria microbiota of several non-wheat cereals and pseudo-cereals has been recently deeply investigated with the aim of studying the biodiversity and finding starter cultures for sourdough fermentation. Currently, the use of ancient or ethnic grains is mainly limited to traditional typical foods and the bread making process is not well standardised with consequent negative effects on the final properties. The challenge in fermenting such grains is represented by the necessity to combine good technology and sensory properties with nutritional/health benefits. The choice of the starter cultures has a critical impact on the final quality of cereal-based products, and strains that dominate and outcompete contaminants should be applied for specific sourdough fermentations. In this sense, screening and characterisation of the lactic acid bacteria microbiota is very useful in the improvement of a peculiar flour, from both a nutritional and technological point of view.
In this study, we compared the fecal microbiota and metabolomes of 26 healthy subjects before (HS) and after (HSB) 2 months of diet intervention based on the administration of durum wheat flour and ...whole-grain barley pasta containing the minimum recommended daily intake (3 g) of barley β-glucans. Metabolically active bacteria were analyzed through pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and community-level catabolic profiles. Pyrosequencing data showed that levels of Clostridiaceae (Clostridium orbiscindens and Clostridium sp.), Roseburia hominis, and Ruminococcus sp. increased, while levels of other Firmicutes and Fusobacteria decreased, from the HSB samples to the HS fecal samples. Community-level catabolic profiles were lower in HSB samples. Compared to the results for HS samples, cultivable lactobacilli increased in HSB fecal samples, while the numbers of Enterobacteriaceae, total coliforms, and Bacteroides, Porphyromonas, Prevotella, Pseudomonas, Alcaligenes, and Aeromonas bacteria decreased. Metabolome analyses were performed using an amino acid analyzer and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry solid-phase microextraction. A marked increase in short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), such as 2-methyl-propanoic, acetic, butyric, and propionic acids, was found in HSB samples with respect to the HS fecal samples. Durum wheat flour and whole-grain barley pasta containing 3% barley β-glucans appeared to be effective in modulating the composition and metabolic pathways of the intestinal microbiota, leading to an increased level of SCFA in the HSB samples.
Gut microbes programme their metabolism to suit intestinal conditions and convert dietary components into a panel of small molecules that ultimately affect host physiology. To unveil what is behind ...the effects of key dietary components on microbial functions and the way they modulate host-microbe interaction, we used for the first time a multi-omic approach that goes behind the mere gut phylogenetic composition and provides an overall picture of the functional repertoire in 27 fecal samples from omnivorous, vegan and vegetarian volunteers. Based on our data, vegan and vegetarian diets were associated to the highest abundance of microbial genes/proteins responsible for cell motility, carbohydrate- and protein-hydrolyzing enzymes, transport systems and the synthesis of essential amino acids and vitamins. A positive correlation was observed when intake of fiber and the relative fecal abundance of flagellin were compared. Microbial cells and flagellin extracted from fecal samples of 61 healthy donors modulated the viability of the human (HT29) colon carcinoma cells and the host response through the stimulation of the expression of Toll-like receptor 5, lectin RegIIIα and three interleukins (IL-8, IL-22 and IL-23). Our findings concretize a further and relevant milestone on how the diet may prevent/mitigate disease risk.
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