The present study was designed to evaluate possible sugar-based trophic interactions between acetic acid bacteria (AAB) and non-Saccharomyces yeasts (NSY) involved in table grape sour rot, a disease in which berries spoilage is caused by the accumulation of several microbial metabolites. Acetobacter syzygii LMG 21419 (As) and Candida zemplinina CBS 9494 (Cz), a simplified AAB-NSY association responsible for table grape sour rot, grew differently in a minimal medium (YP) supplemented with glucose, ethanol, acetic and gluconic acid under monoculture conditions. In As -Cz co-culture media, after 24 h of incubation, As showed high relative abundance in YP-ethanol, whereas Cz was the dominant strain in YP-glucose medium. Co-culture in YP-glucose showed that glucose was converted into ethanol by Cz that, in turn, promoted the growth of As population. Gluconic acid was the main bacterial metabolite from glucose in monoculture, whereas acetic acid putatively derived from ethanol oxidation was found only in co-culture. However, gluconic acid showed inhibitory effect against As whereas acetic acid mainly inhibited Cz. Negative effects of both metabolites were mitigated in the glucose-supplemented medium. The results suggest a possible metabolic- based temporal succession between AAB and NSY during grape sour rot development. At the begin of sour rot, low glucose concentration promotes NSY producing ethanol, then, the AAB could take advantage from the oxidation of ethanol into acetic acid, becoming the dominant microbial sour rot population during the late stages of the process.
Keywords: Acetic acid; Co-culture; Gluconic acid; Oxidative fermentation; Sour rot; Temporal succession.
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