Metadata
MetaCheeseDB pairs each shotgun metagenome with cheese-specific and production-aware metadata to enable robust cross-study comparisons. Public sequencing repositories often include technical descriptors (platform, library layout, run accessions) but rarely provide the processing details that shape cheese microbial ecology. For this reason, we manually curated and harmonised a set of analysis-ready metadata fields focused on the cheese environment, with controlled vocabularies to reduce ambiguity and missingness.
Following is a summary table of the 18 harmonised metadata fields:
| Field | What it describes | Allowed values |
|---|---|---|
| Part_of_cheese | Which part of cheese was sampled | Core; Core_AND_rind; Rind |
| Milk_source | Animal species providing the milk | Cow; Goat; Mixed; Sheep; Water_buffalo; Yak |
| Animal_feeding | Feeding regime of the milking animals | Forage; Pasture |
| Milk_processing | Whether milk was processed before cheesemaking | Pasteurized; Raw |
| Thermisation | Mild heat treatment other than pasteurisation | Facoltative; No; Yes |
| Pasteurization | Explicit pasteurisation status | Facoltative; No; Yes |
| Skimming | Fat removal | Facoltative; No; Partially; Yes |
| Inoculation_of_moulds | Use of mould inoculation during production | None; Yes |
| Curd_cutting | Approximate curd cutting size | Ladled; Large; Small |
| Presence_of_rind | Whether the cheese has a rind | Facoltative; No; Yes |
| Backslopping | Use of backslopping | No; Yes |
| Starter_culture | Type of starter strategy | NWC; Selected |
| Technology_of_production | Broad technological class | Cooked_curd; Pasta_filata; Semicooked; Uncooked; Uncooked_OR_Semicooked |
| Coagulation_method | Coagulation, rennet, alternative types | Acid; Rennet; Vegetable_rennet_from_Cynara_cardunculus; Vegetable_rennet_from_Cynara_cardunculus_OR_Cynara_scolimus |
| Ripening_period | Ripening timing | 1_to_3_months; 3_to_6_months; 6_to_9_months; Min_9_months; Variable |
| Rheological_properties | Texture class | Hard; Semihard; Soft; Variable; Very_hard |
| Temperature_of_curd_processing_Celsius_degree | Heating regime during curd processing | Within_48; 48_to_70; 70_to_90; No_heating_beyond_coagulation; Variable |
| Country | Country of production (as curated) | Austria; Benin; Canada; China; Denmark; France; Germany; Greece; Ireland; Italy; Mexico; Netherlands; Nigeria; Norway; Saudi Arabia; Spain; Switzerland; UK; USA |
Notes on interpretation
- “Facoltative” indicates that the feature is allowed/optional within a production disciplinary.
- Blank fields are to be considered as not available information.
- Metadata completeness varies across studies. When running comparative analyses, we recommend filtering to records with non-missing values for the fields of interest.
Reuse
You are welcome to reuse the metadata tables for research and benchmarking. If you publish analyses using MetaCheeseDB metadata, please cite the MetaCheeseDB manuscript (when will be available) and the present GitHub repository.