BMMIB : Behind Microbe : Microbe Interactions in Blue cheeses

Gorgonzola is a blue-veined, mould-ripened cheese, made from pasteurized cow’s milk inoculated with starter cultures (Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii), along with Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Penicillium roqueforti, the main responsible for the aroma and flavor of the cheese at the end of ripening. The microbial interactions that occur during the ripening process are crucial for the correct development of the final product, which is severely controlled to fulfill the standards of its PDO denomination. These interactions have been studied poorly in the past years: for this reason the aims of this work are i) the characterization of the evolution of microbial populations in each phase of ripening, using traditional microbiological approaches, together with a metagenetics analysis, ii) the enzymatic quantification of microbial metabolites pathways involved during cheese ripening, together with mass-spectrometry analysis and iii) the development of a species-specific primer set for the quantification of Penicillium roqueforti mycelium by qPCR during cheese ripening.