Microbial processes and volatile metabolites in cheese : detection of bacteria using an electronic nose

Cheese is a fermented product in which bacteria contribute to different flavours and textures. In order to understand the microbial processes in cheese, it is necessary to not only look at the genomic information in bacteria. The metabolome consists of a complete collection of metabolites in a biological sample. These metabolites are small molecules with a Mr >1.5 kDa, including flavour compounds. During the ripening process of cheese, many microbiological and biochemical changes occur that give cheese a diversity of textures and flavours. Proteins that go through proteolysis and amino acid catabolism are of great importance in the development of flavour in cheese, regardless of variety. Even though techniques for measurements of metabolites have existed for a long time, there are some unique challenges by analysing of several metabolites in parallel in a biological sample that promotes different metabolic pathways. Metabolic fingerprinting is the most common approach used in metabolomics, which is based on statistical analysis that through algorithms presents differences between samples. The electronic nose is able to identify the sum of volatile metabolites in a food, which is unlike the gas chromatograph that identifies individual metabolites. The aim of this review is to evaluate the use of metabolomics of selected Enterobacteriaceae together with electronic nose technology in order to analyse possible patterns of volatile metabolites produced in soft cheese. By this we hope to evaluate potential application of this approach in food quality control and microbial contamination screening. The pilot study was done together with the center for AASS, Örebro University where bacteria were analysed using the electronic nose NST3320. The study showed that it is possible to discriminate between Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus aureus and cheese-associated bacteria, but also between the Enterobacteriaceae species Escherichia coli, Hafnia alvei and Klebsiella pneumoniae. It is important to consider the gas sensors gradually lose their ability to detect substances after continual use, in which they need to be replaced with new gas sensors. Further, data processing requires special knowledge and can be hard to handle if the expertise is lacking. We believe that there is evidence that metabolomics together with the electronic nose have future prospects in terms of quality control and microbial contamination screening