Yeast strain identification by PCR fingerprinting

Applications

PCR fingerprinting can identify and differentiate production yeast strains. This is a valuable tool for checking yeast slopes, detecting cross contamination, monitoring production yeast cultures and in some instances to detect mutations.

Technology

While differentiation of brewing strains is notoriously difficult to perform using traditional lab techniques, PCR fingerprinting offers a quick and accurate means of differentiating brewing yeast strains based on analysis of multiple regions of the genome. This “ASBC recommended” method utilizes PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) technology to amplify inter-delta regions of the genome, which are known to be highly variable in terms of number, distribution and size between strains. Through this process a unique DNA fingerprint can be obtained for each individual yeast strain.