Abstract: Metagenomic sequencing technology was used to analyze the microbial community structures and functional composition in three rounds of Daqu. The results showed that the average assembly length of the 25 samples was 100.5 Mb, a total of 439 000 gene catalogs were detected, and 5 104 species were identified. The results of species annotation showed that Kroppenstedtia eburnea was the dominant species, and the subdominant species were multiple Bacillus species. There was no significant difference in microbial community diversity between samples from the first feeding (Xiasha) and those from the first round of fermentation, and the β-diversity of the microbial community in samples from the second feeding (Zaosha) was higher than that in samples from Xiasha and the first round of fermentation. The results of gene functional annotation showed that the most abundant genes in Daqu were related to metabolism, while the most representative genes were related to carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism. The number of glycoside hydrolase genes in Zaosha samples was largest and the activities of related enzymes were highest. The above results indicated that the microbial community structures and functional composition in the three rounds of Daqu were basically consistent, whereas there was a difference in functional performance between the Zaosha samples and the other two samples.

Key words: high-temperature Daqu; Jiang-flavor baijiu; metagenomics; microbial community