Aims: To study the yeast diversity of Nigerian palm wines by comparison with other African strains.
Methods and results: Twenty-three Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were obtained from palm wine samples collected at four locations in eastern Nigeria, and characterized using different molecular techniques: internal transcribed spacer restriction fragment length polymorphism and sequence analysis, pulsed field gel electrophoresis, inter delta typing and microsatellite multilocus analysis. These techniques revealed that palm wine yeasts represent a group of closely related strains that includes other West African isolates (CBS400, NCYC110, DVPG6044). Population analysis revealed an excess of homozygote strains and an allelic richness similar to wine suggestive of local domestication. Several other African yeast strains were not connected to this group. Ghana sorghum beer strains and other African strains (DBVPG1853 and MUCL28071) displayed strikingly high relatedness with European bread, beer or wine strains, and the genome of strain MUCL30909 contained African and wine-type alleles, indicating its hybrid origin.
Conclusions: Nigerian palm wine yeast represents a local specific yeast flora, whereas a European origin or hybrid was suspected for several other Africa isolates.
Significance and impact of the study: This study presents the first genetic characterization of an autochthonous African palm wine yeast population and confirms the idea that human intervention has favoured yeast migration.