Characterization of Bacterial Microbiota of P.D.O. Feta Cheese by 16S Metagenomic Analysis.

BACKGROUND: The identification of bacterial species in fermented PDO (protected designation of origin) cheese is important since they contribute significantly to the final organoleptic properties, the ripening process, the shelf life, the safety and the overall quality of cheese. METHODS: Ten commercial PDO feta cheeses from two geographic regions of Greece, Epirus and Thessaly, were analyzed by 16S metagenomic analysis. RESULTS: The biodiversity of all the tested feta cheese samples consisted of five phyla, 17 families, 38 genera and 59 bacterial species. The dominant phylum identified was Firmicutes (49% of the species), followed by Proteobacteria (39% of the species), Bacteroidetes (7% of the species), Actinobacteria (4% of the species) and Tenericutes (1% of the species). Streptococcaceae and Lactobacillaceae were the most abundant families, in which starter cultures of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) belonged, but also 21 nonstarter lactic acid bacteria (NSLAB) were identified. Both geographical areas showed a distinctive microbiota fingerprint, which was ultimately overlapped by the application of starter cultures. In the rare biosphere of the feta cheese, Zobellella taiwanensis and Vibrio diazotrophicus, two Gram-negative bacteria which were not previously reported in dairy samples, were identified. CONCLUSIONS: The application of high-throughput DNA sequencing may provide a detailed microbial profile of commercial feta cheese produced with pasteurized milk.

Reflection of a plane wave from a two-layered seafloor with non-parallel interface between the layers.

This work studies the reflection coefficient of a plane wave incident on a seafloor consisting of two layers (sediment and substrate), whose interface is linear but not parallel to the water-sediment interface. This is an extension of the well-established and studied reflection coefficient concept for seafloors with parallel layers. Moreover this study introduces the concept of the Coherent Reflection Coefficient (CRC) that extends the usual Rayleigh reflection coefficient definition not only at the water-sediment interface but inside the water column as well. The mathematical formulation of the CRC is derived and its numerical implementation is explained. Based on this implementation a numerical code is developed and incorporated-among other codes-in a user-friendly graphics toolbox that was built to facilitate CRC calculations. Numerical examples for realistic seafloors are presented and the derived results are compared to similar ones for parallel layers, indicating that even for small inclination angles the reflection coefficient difference between parallel and slanted interface layers is substantial, hence cannot be ignored. An imminent application of the extended seafloor model and the CRC introduced in this work is the enhancement of geophysics inversion schemes for the estimation of the seafloor parameters.