Characteristic of filamentous fungal diversity and dynamics associated with wheat Qu and the traditional fermentation of Chinese rice wine

Chinese rice wine, a traditional alcoholic beverage, is fermented from steamed rice with a starter culture of wheat Qu which is either inoculated spontaneously with various microorganisms in natural environment or inoculated artificially with certain microorganisms. The diversity of filamentous fungi in wheat Qu and the fermentation mashes of Chinese rice wine was studied by high-throughput sequencing. The results indicated that filamentous fungi varied in wheat Qu and fermentation periods. Moreover, Aspergillus was the dominant filamentous fungi at genus levels. On that basis, quantitative real-time PCR was used to quantify some dominant Aspergillus species. It was found that Aspergillus species in wheat Qu were more abundant than that in various fermentation mashes and continually decreased until the end of rice wine fermentation. Furthermore, it was found that different organic acids were produced by microorganisms at different fermentation stages might due to the changes of oxygen and nutrient content.