Microbial stress: From model organisms to applications in food, microbiotechnology and medicine

Within this Research Topic (RT) we have collected articles addressing microbial stress with special attention on methodology and applications in food technology, medicine or microbiotechnology. We anticipated contributions from members of COST action CA18113 EuroMicropH “Understanding and exploiting the impact of low pH on micro-organism” (COST, 2019), but in the final collection (which attracted 85 authors from 17 countries), we were happy to see many contributing authors from outside this network. This shows the breadth and importance of the topic and also the potential for expansion of the COST network. With 14 original research articles, 1 methods and 1 review article, this RT shows that microbial stress in the above contexts is mostly a result of a combination of stressors. This makes it challenging to understand mechanisms and exploit this knowledge although significant efforts are dedicated to it (De Biase et al., 2020a,b; Lund et al., 2020). The main goal of our EuroMicropH community is to translate research on low pH in particular, and microbial stress in general, between fields, and to identify conceptual and methodological gaps in that knowledge. Our RT helps to address this. We hope it will help the development of new approaches to infection control, while improving food and drink processing and the use of microorganisms in green industrial processes.