The approach to study microorganisms in food has changed. In the last
few years the field of food fermentations has experienced a very fast
development, thanks to the application of methods allowing precise
picturing of their microbial ecology. As a consequence, new information
is available on the structure and dynamics of the microbial populations
taking turns during fermented food production. This is the age when
functional genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics are
going to shed light on the overall role of bacteria in food ferm-
tation, considering also their interactions. Nevertheless, the last 10
years can be considered the "detectomics" era, since much research
effort has been dedicated to the development and optimization of
biomolecular methods for the detection, reliable identification and
monitoring of microorganisms involved in food fermentations. The
identification of species and strains during the different phases of
fermented foods production allows the understanding of the time when
they act or play a role in the food matrix, and the molecular methods
can, thus, be used for this purpose in a sort of functional diagnostics.
It is well recognized by researchers world-wide that traditional
microbiological methods often fail to characterize minor populations or
microorganisms for which a selective enrichment is necessary. Moreover,
stressed and injured cells need specific culturing conditions to recover
and become cultivable on agar media.
