Collection of Yeasts and Other Microbes Used in Fermentation. HAMBI ABM Collection of Yeasts and Other Fermentation Microbes

Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) maintains several University of Helsinki research infrastructures including biodiversity collections. The HiLIFE microbe collection, Microbial Domain Biological Resource Centre (HAMBI), was donated an assortment of food biotechnology-related yeasts and other microbes. As this donated collection was originally maintained by the Finnish alcohol monopoly (Alko), it contains a wide variety of brewer’s yeasts isolated from wine, beer, must, pomace and brewing vessels. Other sources are mostly food or fermentation related, including commercially sold baker’s yeasts, sourdough starters, fermented dairy products, and other fermented or spoiled foodstuffs. Since these specimens were mostly collected between 1950 and 2010, their species were not determined by molecular methods. As they are assimilated into HAMBI, the internal transcribed spacer of each specimen will be sequenced for species identification. Additionally, the D1/D2 domain of 28S ribosomal subunit of potential Saccharomyces cerevisiae specimens will be sequenced. These sequences will be made publicly available via ENA database and linked to the corresponding specimen in HAMBI collection.