Significant difference of the culturable anaerobic microbial species in GujingTribute pitmud with different ages

Most Chinese liquor belongs to strong-aroma type, and GujingTribute liquor with a history over 1800 years is one of this type. The flavor of strong-aroma Chinese liquor is largely determined by anaerobic bacteria embedded in the pits, especially the bottom area of the old pits. In this study, culturable anaerobic species in the old (50-100 years old) and young (5 years old) pitmuds were isolated with anaerobic cultivation and characterized by near full-length 16S rDNA sequencing. Ruminococcaceae bacterium CPB6 and Lactobacillus acetotolerans were found as the most culturable species in the freshly-sampled old and young pitmud samples, respectively. This result confirmed our previous findings by high throughput next generation sequencing that Ruminococcaceae bacterium CPB6 was more abundant in good quality pitmud while Lactobacillus acetotolerans was more abundant in ordinary or poor quality pitmud.