Taxonomic Study on Six Yeast Species Unlisted in the National Species List of Korea

Chorong  Ahn1   Soonok  Kim2   Changmu  Kim2,*   

1Species Diversity Research Division, National Institute of Biological Resources, Incheon 22689, Korea
2Biological Resources Utilization Division, National Institute of Biological Resources, Incheon 22689, Korea

Abstract

More than five hundreds of yeast species (including 9 variants) encompassing 142 genera and 48 classes of 2 phyla exist in Korea. However, only 173 species have been cataloged in the National Species List of Korea (NSLK), the backbone reference to claim sovereign rights over biological resources, as of December 2021, due to the lack of taxonomic descriptions, although some of these species are extensively used in industry. The present pilot study investigated the taxonomy of strains belonging to the six most widely used or frequently isolated yeast species (Meyeromyma guilliermondii, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomycopsis fibuligera, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, Candida tropicalis, and Papiliotrema flavescens) to include these species in the NSLK. Strains with diverse habitats and geographic origins were retrieved from the National Institute of Biological Resources culture collection. These strains clustered in the same clade as the type strains of the designated species according to phylogenetic analysis of the D1/D2 sequences. Moreover, we described the cell morphology and physiological characteristics of representative strains of each species. This study suggests that these six species are indigenous to Korea and can be accordingly listed in the NSLK.

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1.Phylogenetic tree and morphological characteristics of Meyerozyma guilliermondii. A. Phylogenetic tree drawn from neighbor-joining analysis based on the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit (LSU) rRNA sequences, showing positions of M. guilliermondii strains isolated from Korea. Bold means representative strain. B-E. Morphology of M. guilliermondii NIBRFGC000500301. B. Colony on YM agar 7 days at 25℃. C. Budding cells on YM agar 3 days at 25℃. D. Budding cells occurring in short chains on YM agar 7 days at 25℃. E. Pseudohyphae and blastoconidia formed on Dalmau plate with cornmeal agar for 2 weeks. Bars, 10 μm.