Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast populations in a cold region in Argentinean Patagonia. A study at different fermentation scales.
OBJECTIVE
To study the diversity and dynamics of indigenous Saccharomyces wine populations during Malbec spontaneous fermentation, a representative Patagonian red wine, at both industrial and laboratory scale.


RESULTS
Two molecular techniques, including restriction fragment length polymorphism of mitochondrial (mt) DNA and polymorphism of amplified delta interspersed element sequences, were used for characterization of indigenous yeasts at strain level. The mtDNA restriction patterns showed the major discriminative power; however, by combining the two molecular approaches it was possible to distinguish a larger number of strains and, therefore, draw more representative conclusions about yeast diversity. Although a great diversity of wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains was observed, only nine represented more than half of the total Saccharomyces yeast biota analysed; five of these were common and took over the Malbec must fermentation in both vinifications.


CONCLUSIONS
Many different indigenous S. cerevisiae strains were identified; nevertheless, the dominant strains in both industrial and laboratory vinification processes were just a few and the same.


CONCLUSIONS
Small-scale fermentation appears to be a valuable tool in winemaking, one especially helpful in evaluating microbiological aspects of as well as possible interactions between inoculated selected strains and native strains.
Lopes
C A
CA
Departamento de Química, Laboratorio de Microbiología y Biotecnología, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Neuquén, Argentina.
van Broock
M
M
Querol
A
A
Caballero
A C
AC
D001118:Argentina; D003081:Cold Climate; D004251:DNA Transposable Elements / Q000235:genetics; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000032:analysis; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer / Q000235:genetics; D005285:Fermentation; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000145:classification* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*; D014920:Wine / Q000382:microbiology*
D004251:DNA Transposable Elements; D004271:DNA, Fungal; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer