In this study,Lactiplantibacillus plantarum LSSR05 was employed to produce highland barley sour-dough.Traditional culture method and metagenomic sequencing technology were utilized to study the microbial com-munity and its functional features of highland barley sourdough.Additionally,a freeze-drying protectant was screened for preparation of highland barley sourdough powder.The results indicated that after 12 hours of fermenta-tion,the number of lactic acid bacteria increased to 9.19 lg(CFU/g),and yeast reached 3.41 lg(CFU/g),but with Enterobacteriaceae decreasing to less than 1 lg(CFU/g).Metagenomic sequencing revealed that Lactobacillus was dominant during the fermentation,and their relative abundance increased from 77.11%to 96.61%after fermen-tation,while Enterobacter and molds were significantly reduced,which corresponded to the results of plate counting.Meanwhile,metabolic pathways,such as carbohydrate metabolism and amino acid metabolism,etc.dominated sour-dough fermentation,with starch and sucrose metabolism,pyruvate metabolism and glycolysis showing higher abun-dance.The freeze-drying protection effect of inulin was better than that of trehalose and ice structural protein.When 12%inulin was added,the survival rate of lactic acid bacteria in highland barley sourdough powder was the highest,reaching 44.43%.