Use of interdelta polymorphisms of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains to monitor population evolution during wine fermentation.

The industrial use of starter cultures containing a consortium of different strains from the same species is nowadays seen as a possible strategy to enhance the organoleptic complexity of wines. To assess the relative contribution of each strain to the final product it is essential to quantify population evolution during the wine fermentation process, which requires strain-specific methods to identify and differentiate each strain. In the present study, a molecular method based on analysis of the polymorphisms exhibited by the PCR-amplification of the delta regions of three Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains was developed. A set of three pairs of primers (delta1-delta2, delta12-delta2, delta12-delta21) was used for each strain, and analysis of the resulting polymorphism patterns showed that the delta12-delta2 primer pair exhibited the highest resolution and discriminatory power. Thus, this pair of primers was selected to monitor the population evolution of a laboratory-scale wine fermentation performed in synthetic grape juice that was inoculated with similar amounts of each strain. The results showed that all strains grew together during the exponential growth phase (2-3 days) and maintained high cell density values (10(6)-10(7) cfu ml(-1)) throughout the stationary growth phase without significantly changing their relative population proportion, thus indicating that each strain can influence the chemical composition and final flavor of wine, albeit at different levels. This study also showed that PCR-amplification of DNA delta sequences of S. cerevisiae strains is a reproducible, strain-specific and simple method that can be used successfully to monitor yeast strain population dynamics during wine fermentations.