Analysis of Fungal Diversity of Three Samples (dqjq_ck, dqjqcp and dqjp3) from Danquan Distillery

There are fungal communities in fermented grains and high-temperature Daqu of Danquan Baijiu, which had an important effect on Baijiu production. As a saccharifying and fermenting material, to a great extent, Daqu determines Baijiu flavour. However, in high-temperature Daqu “dqjq_ck” and “dqjqcp” (after fermentation for 45 d, 135 d) and fermented grains dqjp3 originated from Danquan distillery, fungal communities remain unclear. Therefore, this study analyzed fungal communities by high-throughput sequencing. Their fungal communities mainly included Ascomycota at phylum level. The most abundant fungal genera were Aspergillus, Issatchenkia and Zygosaccharomyces in dqjq_ck, dqjqcp, dqjp3, respectively. The dominant genera included Aspergillus (96.21%), Thermomyces (2.13%) in dqjq_ck. The dominant genera contained Issatchenkia (48.29%), Millerozyma (14.53%), Thermoascus (12.17%), Aspergillus (8.80%), Hyphopichia (3.28%), Rhizomucor (3.17%), Lichtheimia (2.62%), Thermomyces (2.27%), Monascus (1.37%) in dqjqcp. The dominant genera had Zygosaccharomyces (68.48%), Monascus (15.18%), Aspergillus (6.97%), Cladosporium (1.12%) in dqjp3. The main fungi included Aspergillus, Zygosaccharomyces, Issatchenkia, Monascus, Millerozyma, Thermoascus, Thermomyces, Hyphopichia, Rhizomucor, Lichtheimia and Cladosporium in three samples. The fungal succession of three samples were revealed in three key stages of Danquan Baijiu production. This paper will lay the basis for screening outstanding fungi to enhance Danquan Baijiu quality in near future.