Strong effect of Penicillium roqueforti populations on volatile and metabolic compounds responsible for aromas, flavour and texture in blue cheeses

Thibault Caron (1, 2) , Mélanie Le Piver (2) , Anne-Claire Péron (3) , Pascale Lieben (3) , René Lavigne (4) , Sammy Brunel (2) , Daniel Roueyre (2) , Michel Place (2) , Pascal Bonnarme (3) , Sophie Landaud (3) , Tatiana E Giraud (1) , Antoine Branca (1) , Christophe Chassard (4)

1 ESE - Ecologie Systématique et Evolution
2 Laboratoire Interprofessionnel de Production - SAS L.I.P
3 SayFood - Paris-Saclay Food and Bioproduct Engineering
4 VAS - VetAgro Sup - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche en alimentation, santé animale, sciences agronomiques et de l'environnement

Studies of food microorganism domestication can provide important insight into adaptation mechanisms and lead to commercial applications. The Penicillium roqueforti fungus consists of four genetically differentiated populations, two of which have been domesticated for blue cheese-making, the other two thriving in other environments. Most blue cheeses are made with strains from a single P. roqueforti population, whereas Roquefort cheeses are inoculated with strains from a second population. We made blue cheeses in accordance with the production specifications for Roquefort-type cheeses, inoculating each cheese with a single P. roqueforti strain and using three strains from each of the four populations. The strain population-of-origin had a minor impact on bacterial diversity and none on the main microorganism abundance. The strains from cheese populations produced cheeses with higher percentages of blue area and larger amounts of desired volatile compounds. In particular, the Roquefort strains produced larger amounts of appealing aromatic compounds, in part due to their greater efficiency of proteolysis and lipolysis. The typical appearance and flavors of blue cheeses thus result from human selection on P. roqueforti , and the two cheese populations have acquired specific features. This has important implications for our understanding of adaptation and domestication, and for cheese improvement.

Acknowledgments: We thank Béatrice DESSERRE, Céline DELBES and Cécile CALLON for advice and technical assistance in microbiology, Sébastien THEIL for the technical support of metabarcoding analyses, Patricia LE THUAUT, Manon SURIN and Brigitte POLLET for the technical support of metabolomic analyses, Sara PARISOT for milk delivery and quality, Pierre CONCHON for the technical support of image analysis, LIAL-MC for the various reference measurements in physico-chemistry, Christophe LACROIX and Alfonso DIE for the determination of short-chain fatty acids in fermentation supernatants.

Mots clés: Roquefort cheese; fungi; Penicillium; domestication; volatile compounds

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Thibault Caron, Mélanie Le Piver, Anne-Claire Péron, Pascale Lieben, René Lavigne, et al.. Strong effect of Penicillium roqueforti populations on volatile and metabolic compounds responsible for aromas, flavour and texture in blue cheeses. 2020. ⟨hal-02990776⟩