Multi-omics approaches to elucidate the role of interactions between microbial communities in cheese flavor and quality

ABSTRACT Microorganisms are abundant in cheese and play a crucial role in regulating its flavor and quality. Although single-omics have revealed the microbial communities and metabolites that are present in cheese, the complex interactions between microorganisms and the mechanisms that are involved are difficult to fully understand and analyze. However, comprehensive and multi-dimensional multi-omics approaches can be used to gain a more complete understanding of the microbial community structure and function in cheese. This review describes the (meta)genomics, (meta)transcriptomics, (meta)proteomics, and metabolomic approaches that have recently been applied to elucidate the influence of microbial communities on cheese flavor and quality. Further, we analyze the mechanisms underlying microbial interactions in cheese as described using these multi-omics approaches. The findings presented in this review could facilitate future applications of multi-omics in industrial cheese production.