Saccharomyces in traditional and industrial fermentations from Patagonia

RODRÍGUEZ M.E.; ORIGONE A.C.; GONZÁLEZ FLORES M.; LOPES C.A.

Biology and Biotechnology of Patagonian Microorganisms

Springer

Año: 2016; p. 251 - 276

Abstract A large variety of fermented foods and beverages with traditional and culturalvalue have been described in the world including industrial products like wine, ciderand beer as well as traditional ones. In contrast with the massive scientific informationavailable about the microbiota responsible for winemaking, yeasts responsible for mosttraditional fermented beverages around the world remain undiscovered. Both industrialand traditional fermentation processes coexist in Patagonia, making this region an idealscenario for fermentative yeast diversity studies. The most relevant feature of this areais the fact that most traditional processes are produced at low temperature (below 20ºC),which directly affects the microbial diversity. We identified and characterizedfermentative yeasts present during industrial fermentations of wine and cider andtraditional fermentations (chichas) obtained from wild apples and Araucaria araucanaseeds -substrates typically used by aboriginal communities to perform soft alcoholicbeverages-. As a general rule, only Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were obtainedfrom wines and ciders and they showed a close genetic relationship with Europeanstrains of this species. In traditional fermentations, commercial bakery and Europeanwine strains of S. cerevisiae were detected as pure or mixed cultures withSaccharomyces uvarum, a cryotolerant species. This last species was also isolated fromA. araucana seeds in Patagonian forests together with Saccharomyces eubayanus,another cryotolerant species of the genus. Genetic information obtained from theanalysis of S. uvarum from apple chichas, evidenced a closer relationship to industrial(European) strains than to natural (Patagonian) strains of this species. North Patagoniais an interesting scenario to study cryotolerant (S. uvarum and S. eubayanus) yeastdiversity studies, and a source of new strains with potential biotechnological interest.