Department of Genetics

Permanent URI for this community

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/21

Browse

Browsing Department of Genetics by browse.metadata.advisor "Bauer, Florian"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mannoprotein production and wine haze reduction by wine yeast strains
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012-12) Ndlovu, Thulile; Bauer, Florian; Divol, Benoit; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of AgriSciences. Dept. of Genetics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Wine protein haze formation is a major challenge for wine makers, and several wine clarifying agents such as bentonite are used in the industry to protect wine from this occurrence. However, clarifying agents may have an undesirable impact on wine quality. Yeast mannoproteins have been shown to possess haze-protective properties, while also positively impacting on the sensorial properties of the product. However, while such mannoproteins are released into the wine during the wine making process, the amounts are low and therefore of limited oenological significance. However, and although commercial wine yeast strains display significant genotypic and phenotypic diversity, no broader assessment of haze protective activity and of mannoproteins release by different wine yeast strains has been undertaken. In this study, several yeast strains were screened for their impact on wine haze formation in Chardonnay must and in a grape juice model system. The data show that strains of the species Saccharomyces paradoxus possess better haze protective properties than the common Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeast strains. Differences in the nature of the proteins released by these two species were investigated, and indicated that several mannoproteins were released at significantly higher levels by S. paradoxus, and that some of these proteins might indeed contribute to the haze-protective activity. A further exploration of yeast cell wall properties indicated that the cell walls of haze-protective S. paradoxus strains contained higher levels of chitin than non-haze protective strains. Grape chitinases are likely to be primarily responsible for wine haze formation, and the data clearly demonstrate that these enzymes are able to bind to the yeast cell walls, and that strains with higher amounts of chitin in the cell wall will bind more chitinases. This finding suggests that the haze-protective nature of the strains is at least in part linked to the chitin levels of the strains. Furthermore, the impact of some genetic modifications in two wine strains (namely S. cerevisiae VIN13 and S. paradoxus RO88) suggests that several proteins contribute to wine haze protection. However, none of the mannoprotein-encoding flocculation genes, FLO1, FLO5, and FLO11 showed any impact on this property. Further studies are required to assess the full impact of the S. paradoxus strains on haze protection. In particular, the possible use of such strains as starter cultures or the use of S. paradoxus yeast hulls as clarifying agent needs to be further explored.