Browsing by Subject "gutting"

This study aimed to investigate the microbiological quality of the whole and gutted Baltic herring at different seasons by traditional culture-dependent methods combined with the identification of bacterial isolates by MALDI-TOF MS. Additionally, the microbiome of the herring was characterized by culture-independent 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Bacterial counts were within acceptable limits at all seasons although the H2S-producing bacteria levels were above the recommended level of 5 log10 CFU g-1 at two sampling points. With the culture-dependent methods and the sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene, the microbiome of the whole and gutted herring was dominated by the bacterial class Gammaproteobacteria. Shewanella, Pseudomonas, and Aeromonas were the most frequently isolated genera among the viable population identified with MALDI-TOF MS. With the culture-independent approach, Shewanella followed by Psychrobacter were the most abundant genera. Additionally, a high relative abundance of the phyla Firmicutes and Actinobacteria and, in some samples, Epsilonbacteriaeota represented by the genus Arcobacter, was detected. Variances in the microbiological quality of different herring batches observed in this study could not be attributed to the season. Therefore future research through a longer period was proposed, including data on the environmental factors, such as the fishing location and the water quality, possibly affecting the quality of the herring.