Microbial Ecology of Pecorino Siciliano PDO Cheese Production Systems

Pecorino Siciliano PDO is a semi-hard cheese that produced in wooden vats using raw sheep’s milk and its associated autochthonous microbial community. In the present study, we evaluated ecology of milk, curd whey from five PDO-producing farms Sicily combination metagenomic microbiological approaches. We an overview species strain-level diversity dairy lactococcal streptococcal isolates established genotyping tools compare lactic acid bacterial populations samples these farms. Whole genome sequences representative Lactococcus spp. Streptococcus thermophilus were elucidated genetic strains was through analysis predicted phage-resistance systems prophage-associated regions. The revealed farm-specific possess diverse genotypic features including newly described systems.