Occurrence of Killer Yeast Strains in Fruit and Berry Wine Yeast Populations

Gintare Gulbiniene¹, Laima Kondratiene¹, Tautvile Jokantaite¹, Elena Serviene¹, Vytautas Melvydas¹ and Giedre Petkuniene²*

¹Laboratory of Genetics, Institute of Botany, Zaliuju ezeru 49, LT-08406 Vilnius, Lithuania
²Department of Gene Engineering, Institute of Biochemistry, Mokslininku 12, LT-08662 Vilnius, Lithuania

Article history:
Received November 7, 2003
Accepted July 6, 2004

Key words:
dsRNA, immunity, killer activity, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, wine yeast

Summary:
Apple, cranberry, chokeberry and Lithuanian red grape wine yeast populations were used for the determination of killer yeast occurrence. According to the tests of the killer characteristics and immunity the isolated strains were divided into seven groups. In this work the activity of killer toxins purified from some typical strains was evaluated. The analysed strains produced different amounts of active killer toxin and some of them possessed new industrially significant killer properties. Total dsRNA extractions in 11 killer strains of yeast isolated from spontaneous fermentations revealed that the molecular basis of the killer phenomenon was not only dsRNAs, but also unidentified genetic determinants.

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