Inoculum size of co-fermentative culture impacts the sensory quality and volatile metabolome of fermented milk over storage

Differential abundant metabolites identified between control and PC-01-L, PC-01-M, and PC-01-H. Multiple statistical methods, including t-test, fold-change analysis, and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) with a variable importance on projection (VIP), were used to analyze differences between treatment groups. Volatile metabolites with P < 0.05, fold-change > 2 or <0.5, and VIP >1 were selected as significantly differential metabolites.