Yeasts from home-made dairy products on the territory of Ukraine, especially in the Hutsul region of the Carpathians, are very little studied. The aim of this work was to study the diversity of yeasts, isolated from traditional Hutsul dairy products, identified by their phenotypical features. Yeast isolates from the sour cream and the rennet cheese were isolated in pure culture using the serial dilution method with subsequent culturing on the malt agar medium. The taxonomic position was determined based on the morphological, biochemical, and physiological characteristics of the yeasts. We isolated and identified 23 yeast cultures belonging to ten species of eight genera (Candida, Debaryomyces, Galactomyces, Kluyveromyces, Lipomyces, Pichia, Shwanniomyces and Torulaspora). In general, the representatives of the genera Kluyveromyces, Debaryomyces and Torulaspora were the most abundant in the studied dairy products. Typical species for dairy products K. marxianus was the most common (33.3%) in sour cream, whereas the species D. occidentalis var. occidentalis, isolated by us for the first time from dairy products, was the most numerous in cheese (23.5%). Yeast strains isolated from the little studied traditional Hutsul products can serve as a source for the search for biotechnologically perspective yeasts with human wellness improving effects and producers of biologically active substances
yeast, dairy products, biodiversity
References in the process of publication