Tempeh is an Indonesian traditional fermented food produced using Rhizopus as a starter culture. In practice, however, the starter culture as well as fermentation processes would yield a polymicrobial fermentation, which generated a unique tempeh flavor and texture. This condition makes Indonesian tempeh as one of the most complex fermented food, while at the same time would make it difficult to scale up tempeh production with uniform quality and consistency. The aim of this study was to compare a number of tempeh microbial communities employing Amplified Ribosomal Intergenic Sequence Analysis (ARISA). Fresh tempeh samples were obtained from tempeh producers in Java and Moluccas. 16S rRNA gene libraries and DNA sequencing were employed to analyze further the nature of bacterial diversity in two selected tempeh samples. The results of our study showed that different tempeh producer possessed different Bacterial ARISA (BARISA) or fungi ARISA (FARISA) profiles. However, BARISA profiles were found to be more discriminative than FARISA, and therefore BARISA would be more useful for tempeh genetic fingerprint or barcoding

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One of the important problems in traditional Nata de Coco (Nata) fermentation is production inconsistency due to strain or genetic variability reflecting mixed microbial communities involved in this process. This research was aimed at examine the population dynamics of the bacterial community during the fermentation processes. Samples were collected daily for six days from fermentation media derived from "good" and "bad" Nata fermentation. We compared the levels of bacterial diversity through amplified 16S-rRNA (ARDRA). DNA was extracted directly from the fermentation media and 16S-rRNA gene was amplified employing Universal Bacterial Primers. The amplicons were cloned into pGEM-T Easy vector, and restriction enzymes HaeIII and RsaI were used to generate ARDRA profiles. ARDRA phylotypes of DNA extracted from the fermentation medium obtained from different Nata qualities were compared. Phylotype profiles demonstrated unique bacterial community profiles for different conditions of Nata quality, which could be developed as a parameter to monitor Nata quality during fermentation. In this research we found that the dynamics of the bacterial population involved in Nata fermentation were a crucial factor for determining traditional Nata quality.

Bekasang of gonad sea urchin is one of the traditional fermentation products which generally involves microorganism spontaneous fermentation. Fermented paste products have a long shelf life and are processed quite easily using protease enzymes. Good exploration of producing protease from bakasang is needed to obtain the protease enzyme-producing microorganism with different characters. The method used in this research is screening with clear zone, measuring the activity of crude extract of protease enzyme characterization of bacteria through gram staining. Identification of potential microorganisms through 16S rRNA sequence. The results showed that there were eight isolates of protease enzyme-producing bacteria (G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7, and G8) indicated by clear zones around single-colonic bacterial streaks. Only five bacterial isolates (G1, G4, G6, G7, and G8) were tested for the enzyme activity. These isolates have characteristics of positive gram bacteria. The interpretation of the results of molecular analysis using PCR and BLASTN sequences of 16S rRNA gene from five bacterial isolates, showed the identity of bacteria as: G1 was Staphylococcus piscifermentans strain CIP103958 with 99% similarity; Isolate G4 was Staphylococcus saprophyticus strain ATCC 15305 with 99% similarity; Isolate G6 was Staphylococcus condimenti F-2 strain with 99% similarity; Isolate G7 was Bacillus amyloliquefaciens subsp. plantarum strain FZB42 with 99% similarity; And G8 isolates was Lactobacillus plantarum strain JCM 1149 with 99% similarity.