Discussion:Saccharomyces uvarum

Sir, Madame There is a confusion in your Encyclopedia. Yeast taxonomists use the yeast names admitted by authors in the books: The Yeasts, A taxonomic study, Editions: 1952 by J. Lodder and N.J.W. Kreger-van Rij; 1970 by J. Lodder ; 1984 by N.J.W. Kreger-van Rij; 1998 by C.P. Kurtzman & J.W. Fell. In the first two editions Saccharomyces uvarum was a proper species described Beijerinck M.W. in 1898 with he type strain CBS 395 isolated from black currant juice (Ribes nigrum). In the 1984 edition S. uvarum was regarded as synonym with S. bayanus, a species described by Saccardo P.A. in 1895, the type culture or type strain is CBS 380 isolated from turbid beer. When two species were recognized synomyms the name retained was the most ancient so S. bayanus described earlier was maintained as taxon name. Successive works using molecular techniques demonstrated that S. uvarum is a "pure" widesprd species while S. bayanus carrying a "mixed" genome is a partial hybrid. We thus reinstated S. uvarum as a distinct species (Nguyen & Gaillardin, 2005). S. uvarum is not a synonym of S. carlsbergensis, a bottom brewer's yeast described by Hansen E.C. in 1908, the type strain CBS 1513 was isolated from bottom yeast at the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen. Another strain isolated at the same brewey was named S. monacensis. Both S. carlsbergensis and S. monacensis are now synonyms of S. pastorianus (Reess, 1870, see Vaughan-Mertini& Kurtzman, 1985, The Yeasts Edt.1998). Dr NGUYEN HUU VANG