Scientists from eight academic institutes around the globe analysed strains associated with activities such as baking, wine and sake, as well as wild strains, mostly from oak bark. Their findings were published online ahead of print this week in Nature.
Corresponding author for the project, Professor Ed Louis from the University of Nottingham told BeverageDaily.com that understanding the variations between strains allow us to work out what genetic differences make one yeast strain better for wine production, or beer production.
“Identifying genes that are important in specific traits will help with obtaining better strains for specific purposes,” he said.
Prof Louis said that, on a simple level, the researchers have surveyed enough strains from a variety of sources and locations that they know which beverages and industries are using which strains. “We kind of knew this already,” he said “but we can see that yeast for sake is one population, for wine is one population, but many of the strains for beer and bakery are mosaics.”
Yeast production is a multi-billion dollar industry for brewing, baking, biofuel production, probiotics, and medical applications. The strains used in this study are available publicly alongside several thousand other yeasts at. The collection, known as the National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC), is supported at the Institute of Food Research by the BBSRC.
The new analysis will allow scientists to sift through billions of DNA bases and clearly spot wild yeast or the mosaic genome of a recent hybrid, according to Dr Ian Roberts, leader of the NCYC research team and the collection's curator.
By understanding yeast biodiversity, better exploitation for human benefit can be achieved.
Drinking not exclusive to humans
Recent findings from the Malaysian rainforest suggested that humans are not the only ones to have an intimate relationship with fermented beverages. The Malaysian study showed that wild tree-shrews like a tipple (at chronic levels) of alcoholic nectar.
Source: NaturePublished online ahead of print, doi: 10.1038/nature07743“Population genomics of domestic and wild yeasts”Authors: G. Liti, D.M. Carter, A.M. Moses, J. Warringer, et al.