Abstract: In this study, electronic nose was used to evaluate the flavor of Chinese sausage at different fermentation times, MiSeq high-throughput sequencing technique was used to analyze the diversity of bacterial flora, and the metabolic function of bacteria was predicted. Finally, the correlation between bacterial diversity, sausage flavor and metabolic pathways was studied. The results showed that the flavor of sausage changed significantly on about day 10 of fermentation. The initial fermentation period was the key period for the formation of sausage flavor. At this time, at the phylum level, the sum of the average relative contents of Firmicutes and Proteobacteria was 96.00%. At the genus level, the dominant bacteria were mainly lactic acid bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus and Weissella. Through gene function prediction and correlation analysis, it was found that lactic acid bacteria in sausages played a crucial role in the fermentation and ripening as well as flavor formation of sausages. Besides, the study showed that the best sausage quality was achieved on about day 10 of fermentation.

Key words: sausage; electronic nose; bacterial diversity; function prediction; high throughput sequencing