The identification and classification of yeasts have traditionally been based on morphological, physiological and biochemical traits. Various kits have been developed as rapid systems for yeast identification, but mostly for clinical diagnosis. In recent years, different molecular biology techniques have been developed for yeast identification, but there is no available database to identify a large number of species. In the present study, the restriction patterns generated from the region spanning the internal transcribed spacers (ITS1 and ITS2) and the 5.8S rRNA gene were used to identify a total of 132 yeast species belonging to 25 different genera, including teleomorphic and anamorphic ascomycetous and basidiomycetous yeasts. In many cases, the size of the PCR products and the restriction patterns obtained with endonucleases CfoI, HaeIII and HinfI yielded a unique profile for each species. Accordingly, the use of this molecular approach is proposed as a new rapid and easy method of routine yeast identification.

Real-time PCR, or quantitative PCR (QPCR), has been developed to rapidly detect and quantify the total number of yeasts in wine without culturing. Universal yeast primers were designed from the variable D1/D2 domains of the 26S rRNA gene. These primers showed good specificity with all the wine yeasts tested, and they did not amplify the most representative wine species of acetic acid bacteria and lactic acid bacteria. Numerous standard curves were constructed with different strains and species grown in yeast extract-peptone-dextrose medium or incubated in wine. The small standard errors with these replicas proved that the assay is reproducible and highly robust. This technique was validated with artificially contaminated and natural wine samples. We also performed a reverse transcription-QPCR (RT-QPCR) assay from rRNA for total viable yeast quantification. This technique had a low detection limit and was more accurate than QPCR because the dead cells were not quantified. As far as we know, this is the first time that RT-QPCR has been performed to quantify viable yeasts from rRNA. RT-QPCR is a rapid and accurate technique for enumerating yeasts during industrial wine fermentation and controlling the risk of wine spoilage.