Leveraging kombucha fermentation: unraveling microbiome and metabolite composition and dynamics

Kombucha is a fermented, non- to low-alcoholic tea beverage that is produced in a poorly-standardized traditional manner. Although kombucha is commonly consumed in some countries like the USA where major industrial producers dominate the market, its production process is a high-risk, ill-defined, up-scaled version of the household procedures. To be able to produce kombucha in a more standardized and quality controlled manner to respond to an urgent societal need and clear economic potential, several fundamental knowledge gaps need to be addressed. We hypothesize that an unprecedented, large-scale analysis of the kombucha microbiota, coupled to an in-depth genomic and metabolomic characterization of obtained isolates will allow to compose kombucha consortia for standardized kombucha production. To this end we aim (i) to make an inventory of the microbial diversity and metabolite composition of a large number of kombucha samples, (ii) to create a collection of kombucha-derived bacteria and yeasts, (iii) to clarify the underlying mechanisms and dynamics of metabolite biosynthesis, and (iv) to select consortia of starter cultures. This project will perform an unprecedented large-scale analysis of the cultivable kombucha microbiota. It will be the first to correlate in-depth functional genomic with metabolomic data to select isolates for kombucha production consortia and will generate a valuable resource of bacterial and yeast isolates for the SME industry.