Characterization of yeast flora isolated from blue-veined cheese

ABSTRACT

Yeast populations are frequently found in blue-veined cheese. In order to investigate yeast communities, one hundred cheese samples were collected from the Egyptian retail markets. Two hundred and forty eight yeast isolates were examined along with nine standard yeast strains using morphological and biochemical reactions. The obtained data applied to numerical analysis to compute the dendrogram. The isolated yeasts belong to eight genera and nine different species in which seven species were ascosporongenous Debaryomyces hansenii [35.8%], Torulaspora delbrueckii [16%], Saccharomyces cerevisiae [14.8%], Kluyveromyces marxianus var lactis [5.8%], Pichia farinsa [5.4%], Yarrowia lipolytica [4.7%] and Zygosaccharomyces rouxii [3.9%] while one genus with 2species was nonascosporongenous Candida versatilis [8.6%] and C.zeylanoides [5.1%]. Generally, Yeasts were found in high numbers, making their occurrence in blue-veined cheese meaningful