Next generation microbiological risk assessment meta-omics: The next need for integration

TLDR

A multi‑omics approach integrates metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, and metabolomics to better understand microbial community behavior, yet the challenge remains to exploit and interpret the large data volume for food safety risk management. The paper identifies limitations, challenges, and gaps in multi‑omics for microbiological risk assessment while outlining its potential impact on traditional food industry microbiology schemes. Integrating multi‑omics data into microbiological risk assessment enables this approach.

Abstract

The development of a multi-omics approach has provided a new approach to the investigation of microbial communities allowing an integration of data, which can be used to better understand the behaviour of and interactions between community members. Metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics and metabolomics have the potential of producing a large amount of data in a very short time, however an important challenge is how to exploit and interpret these data to assist risk managers in food safety and quality decisions. This can be achieved by integrating multi-omics data in microbiological risk assessment. In this paper we identify limitations and challenges of the multi-omics approach, underlining promising potentials, but also identifying gaps, which should be addressed for its full exploitation. A view on how this new way of investigation will impact the traditional microbiology schemes in the food industry is also presented.