Community structure and metabolic potentials for biofuel production of an ancient beer starter ‘emao' revealed by a whole-metagenome study

Abstract

The community structure and functional metabolic modules occurring in ‘emao' – a traditional rice beer starter of ancient origin from north-east India has been unearthed for the first time using shot-gun whole-metagenome sequencing. Emao harbours potential microorganisms for saccharification, lignocellulose degradation, and biofuel production that correlate with probable metabolic functional modules. Eukaryotic microorganisms, especially moulds and yeasts, dominated over the prokaryotes in emao compared to previous metagenomic studies on such traditional starters where the relative abundance of prokaryotes was higher than the eukaryotes. The comprehensive microbial species diversity, community structure, and metabolic modules exhibited in emao would be practical in the formulation of mixed-microbial cultures for biofuel production from plant-based feedstocks.