Abstract: The microbial community structure and diversity in crude and refined Korean traditional rice wine from Yanbian, Jilin province and its starter culture were analyzed by high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rDNA V3 region and the fungal ITST1 region on the Illunina MiSeq and HiSeq platforms, respectively. The results of sequencing showed effective in-depth coverage of the microbial species, and the starter culture and rice wines were all populated by a highly diverse array of bacteria and fungi. The rice wines were similar to each other in microbial community structure, but significantly different from the starter culture. At the genus level, a total of 147 bacterial species were identified in all the samples. The dominant bacteria in the starter culture were Pseudomonas (5.00%) and Enterobacter (4.28%), while Lactobacillus (3.72% and 7.73%) and Enterobacter (6.31% and 4.41%) were dominant in both the crude and refined wines. Meanwhile, at the specie level, 12 fungi were identified in all these samples. The dominant fungus in the starter culture was Guehomyces pullulans (10.22%), while Saccharomyces cerevisiae (49.48% and 81.52%) and Hyphopichia burtonii (29.47% and 6.43%) were dominant in both the crude and refined wines.

Key words: Chinese Korean rice wine, starter culture, microbial community diversity, high-throughput sequencing