Bacteria associated to human saliva are major microbial components of Ecuadorian indigenous beers (chicha)

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  Instituto de Microbiologia, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1520v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Anthropology, Microbiology, Infectious Diseases
Keywords
Lactic acid bacteria, indigenous beer, fermentation, chicha, microbiota, artisanal fermented beverages, Streptococcus salivarius, Streptococcus mutans, lactic acid bacteria, fermented cassava, Ecuador, chewed indigenous beer, cassava, saliva
Copyright
© 2015 Freire et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Freire AL, Zapata S, Mosquera J, Trueba G. 2015. Bacteria associated to human saliva are major microbial components of Ecuadorian indigenous beers (chicha) PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1520v1

Abstract

Indigenous beers (chicha) are part of the indigenous culture in Ecuador. The fermentation process of these beers relay probably on microorganisms from: fermenting substrates, environment and human microbiota. We analyzed the microbiota of artisanal beers (including a type of beer produced after chewing boiled cassava) using bacterial culture and 16S-based tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing (bTEFAP). Surprisingly, we found that Streptococcus salivarius and Streptococcus mutans (part of the human oral microbiota) where among the most abundant bacteria in chewed cassava and in non-chewed cassava beers. We also demonstrated that S. salivarius and S. mutans (isolated from these beers) could proliferate in cassava mush. Lactobacillus sp. was predominantly present in most types of Ecuadorian chicha.

Author Comment

Using a combination of classical bacteriology and high throughput DNA sequencing we demonstrated the presence of oral streptococci in these beers; to our knowledge there is no previous report showing these bacteria as major microbial components of chicha. Our report also illustrates how bacteria from human microbiota may be incorporated into a fermentation process. This study complements the information presented by another paper, previously published in PeerJ.