"Bacterial communities in açai fruit (Euterpe oleracea): Biodiversity during the postharvest fermentation and prospection of lactic acid bacteria as producers of volatile organic compounds".
Euterpe oleracea, bacterial diversity, lactic acid bacteria, volatile organic compounds
Açai (Euterpe oleracea) fruits (EOF) are an example of success of local product on the global market. The EOF suffer spontaneous fermentation during postharvest due to the lack of logistic facilities, mainly transportation time from the field to the EOF markets. The biodiversity of microbial community in EOF and their evolution between three geographical origins and two fermentation conditions were examined for the first time. Culture-independent methods on 16S rRNA gene amplicons from 18 samples revealed that Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Acidobacteria were the most abundant phyla. At genus level, were identified Massilia (taxon remaining constant during the 30 h of fermentation), Pantoea (taxon with the highest increase during fermentation), Naxibacter, Enterobacter, Raoultella and Klebsiella, forming the carposphere bacterial microbiota of EOF. The results showed predominance of Massilia genus (> 50% sequences) in EOF. Attributes related to plant growth promotion (siderophores) and others compounds e.g. poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) and violacein in response to stress conditions could improve the Massilia preponderance. This research offers new insights of the indigenous bacterial community composition on EOF as a function of spontaneous fermentation during postharvest.