Bacterial Metagenome Profiling of Hand-Made Herby Cheese Samples Utilizing High-Throughput Sequencing to Detect Geographical Indication and Marketing Potential

The microbial composition of dairy products as microbiota is one of the emerging areas of interest. Utilizing novel approaches such as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology to decipher the genetic code of 16s rRNA genes to characterize the bacterial population is widely applied. In this study, the bacterial microbiota of the herby cheese samples which were collected from the South Eastern region of Turkey was examined by an NGS approach in purpose of finding geographical indication possibilities. In brief, Firmicutes is the dominant phyla where Lactobacillaceae and Streptococcaceae are abundant families across the analyzed herby cheese microbiota. The most prominent species is Companilactobacillus ginsenosidimutans detected as the dominant member of the bacterial consortia in 16 herby cheese samples. Another remarkable finding reported here is the Weissella jogaejeotgali which was detected in 15 cheese samples. Albeit the abundance of Levilactobacillus koreensis is low at the microbiome level it was identified in four herby cheese samples. As expected, lactic acid bacteria such as Lactobacillus delbrueckii , Lactococcus raffinolactis and Tetragenococcus halophilus were also identified. On the other hand, bacterial diversity and microbial composition among cheese samples are not significantly affected by mixing different herbs on the manufacturing of herby cheeses. To the best of our knowledge, C. ginsenosidimutans , W. jogaejeotgali and L. koreensis are identified and reported for the first time in a dairy product in this study. These findings make the cheeses in the geography where the samples were produced more valuable and provide opportunities for them to receive geographical indications. Thus, it will create added value while marketing the products.