Characterization of wine yeast strains of the Saccharomyces genus on the basis of molecular markers: Relationships between genetic distance and geographic or ecological origin

We identify and characterize 31 Saccharomyces strains from different wine regions, deposited at the Spanish Type Culture Collection, according to mtDNA restriction patterns and chromosomal profiles. By using this kind of information we analyze the correlation between genetic distances and ecological or geographical factors by means of a cluster analysis, assessed by an analysis of the molecular variance (AMOVA). From these analyses, red wine strains are significantly grouped according to their geographic origin, independently of the wine type and the grapevine cultivar, and white wine strians according to ecological factors (wine type of grapevine cultivars). This study also confirms the usefulness of the analysis of interpopulation genetic polymorphism, such as that resulting from mtDNA restriction fragment analysis of wine yeast strains, to determine the distribution of variation in natural populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.