Bacterial Community Structure in Sago Pith and Sago Waste Water and Its Potential Uses as Organic Acids Producer

Abstract

Sago is one of the commodities in South Sulawesi. The extraction process of sago flour produces wastewater that still contains organic matter and smells sour. The sour odor produced allows acid-producing bacteria that can be used for waste treatment. This research aims to explore the bacterial community structure in sago pith and sago wastewater through high-throughput sequencing technology and its potential uses as organic acids producer. Samples were obtained from a traditional sago factory in Palopo City, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The acidity degree, total dissolved solids, and temperature were measured in the sago pool at the sampling area, while the nutrient contents were analyzed by titration method in Testing Laboratory of Food Quality and Food Safety, Brawijaya University. Bacterial cells in the sago wastewater were acquired through a multilevel filtering process on filter paper with pore nitrocellulose membrane sizes of 0.45 and 0.20 µm. Total DNA trapped in the nitrocellulose membrane with a pore size of 0.20 µm was isolated using FastDNA Spin Kit (MPBIO), and the V3-V4 regions of 16S rDNA (341f-806r) were amplified. Amplicons were analyzed by Miseq of Illumina and further analyzed by Muscle v.3.8.31, QIIME v.1.7.0, and R v.2.15.3. The result shows that nutrient content in sago pith is higher than in sago wastewater. Both samples are dominated by Phylum Proteobacteria and share 189 common bacterial species. The dominant bacteria that can produce organic acid in sago pith are Dysgonomonas sp., Propionispira sp., and Lactobacillus pentosus. While, Lactobacillus mali and Gluconobacter frateurii are the dominant organic acid-producer bacteria in sago wastewater.