Tian et al. (2025) have made a valuable contribution to dairy science by investigating strain-level variation in diacetyl production by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, a key bacterium influencing dairy flavor. Their study revealed substantial phenotypic diversity among 351 isolates and identified strain WJ108 as a particularly high producer, highlighting the potential for targeted strain selection. However, their conclusion regarding distinct volatile signatures, based on principal component analysis (PCA), warrants further discussion.
Oka et al. (Thu,) studied this question.