Microbiota Associated with Dromedary Camel Milk from Algerian Sahara

Abstract

Despite the fact that camel milk represents a valuable food source, the fungal diversity of raw camel milk has been poorly studied so far. Here, we investigated the fungal and bacterial communities found in dromedary camel milk from Ghardaia, a representative region of Algerian Sahara. The application of both culture-dependent and independent molecular techniques, based on dHPLC analysis and metabarcoding of ITS region, provided a complementary biodiversity assessment of camel milk fungi which was composed of 15 different taxa. Yeast species belonged to Filobasidium, Naganishia, Malassezia, Mrakia, Rhodotorula, and Yarrowia genera; and mold species belonged to Fusarium, Cladosporium, and Penicillium genera. All three techniques revealed that the fungal community was dominated by species belonging to the former genus Cryptococcus (Filobasidium and Naganishia) although none of them was able to encompass the entire fungal diversity alone. In addition, massive parallel 16S rRNA tag sequencing was applied to gain an insight into the diversity of bacterial communities which were dominated by Pseudomonas spp. Our results provide an initial insight about fungal and bacterial population found in dromedary camel milk from Algerian Sahara.