SIMPLIFIED TECHNIQUES FOR IDENTIFYING FOODBORNE YEASTS

Four problematic areas associated with the identification of foodborne yeasts are discussed. These consist of (1) the inability of conventio nal identification tests to recognize some common and important foodbo rne yeasts characterized by genomic differences (e.g., Saccharomyces c erevisiae, S. bayanus and S. pastorianus); (2) the delay in applicatio n of non-traditional identification methods such as DNA fingerprinting , chromosome karyotyping, protein electrophoretic patterns and fatty a cid profiles for routine identification purposes; (3) the lack of comm ercially available manual or automated identification systems dedicate d to the diagnosis of foodborne yeasts; and (4) the disregard for cons idering ecological frequency of yeasts in computerized probabilistic i dentification systems.