Improvement of autochthonous Saccharomyces cerevisiae by rapid laboratory evolution technique of genome shuffling

The process of selecting indigenous Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains as a starter culture for specific fermentation has several requisites, including the assessment of distinct parameters based on desirable and traditional oenological criteria. In most wineries, commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains are used for wine fermentation. However, it is rare to find indigenous cerevisiae strains used in wine production, even though these isolates are better adapted to specific regions and are often preferred for producing local fruit wines. Here, the identification and characterization of indigenous cerevisiae was carried out by 28S rRNA sequencing, followed by FTIR analysis for further confirmation. The strain improvement technique genome shuffling was incorporated to ameliorate sugar tolerance and enhance alcohol production in cerevisiae RHTD10 strain. As a result, it was observed that improved strain from third round of shuffling tolerated sugar stress of 30% and produced the 10.14 0.21 % of alcohol, which is higher than wild strain of 7.11 0.22 % alcohol.