Diversity of yeasts during fermentation of cocoa from two sites in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the yeasts involved in spontaneous fermentation of cocoa from the Brazilian Amazon region. The fermentation process was carried out experimentally with cocoa seeds from two sites (Medicilândia and Tucumã), State of Pará, northern Brazil, during a six-day period. Totals of 44 yeasts were isolated from Medicilândia and 29 from Tucumã. Molecular identification was carried out by sequencing the D1/D2 region fragment of the rRNA 26S gene, expanded with universal primers for the NL1GC and LS2 eukaryotes. Pichia manshurica and Saccharomyces cerevisiae were identified in Medicilândia and five yeast species (Pichia fermentans, P. kudriavzevii, P. manshurica, S. cerevisiae and Zygosaccharomyces bailii) were identified in Tucumã. The results showed that P. manshurica and S. cerevisiae may have potential for use as starter cultures in future studies to improve the quality of cocoa seeds fermented in the Brazilian Amazon region.

Functional Biodiversity of Yeasts Isolated from Colombian Fermented and Dry Cocoa Beans

“…Except for Z. bisporus, the presence of all the species identified in this study was frequently reported in cocoa beans fermentation [31,[35][36][37].…”

“…In particular, both these species are considered as the best adapted and the most relevant yeast species involved in cocoa fermentation, due to their ability to adapt to changes in pH and temperature and to the ability to metabolise pulp citric acid, as well as to their low nutritional needs. For these reasons, they were reported as the dominant species in Ghanaian, Ivorian, and Brazilian cocoa beans fermentation [28], [30][31][32][33][34].…”

The microbiota diversity identified during the cocoa fermentation and the benefits of the starter cultures use: an overview

“… 1: (Agyirifo et al ., 2019), 2: (Almeida et al ., 2018), 3: (Arana‐Sánchez et al ., 2015), 4: (Bastos et al ., 2018), 5: (Batista et al ., 2015), 6: (Bortolini et al ., 2016), 7: (Fernández Maura et al ., 2016), 8: (Gibe & Pangan, 2015), 9: (Hamdouche et al ., 2015), 10: (Ho et al ., 2015), 11: (Koné et al ., 2016), 12: (Lee et al ., 2019), 13: (Miguel et al ., 2017), 14: (Mota‐Gutierrez et al ., 2018), 15: (Ouattara et al ., 2017) 16: (Pereira et al ., 2017), 17: (Romanens et al ., 2018), 18: (Samagaci et al ., 2016), 19: (Schwenninger et al ., 2016), 20: (Serra et al ., 2019), 21: (Soumahoro et al ., 2020), 22: (Visintin et al ., 2017). …”

“…manshurica together with S . cerevisiae are resistant and adapt to different environmental conditions (Almeida et al ., 2018).…”

Profile of Volatile Compounds of On-Farm Fermented and Dried Cocoa Beans Inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae KY794742 and Pichia kudriavzevii KY794725

“…Several studies in the literature report the performance of a wide variety of yeasts, lactic and acetic bacteria during fermentation in different locations around the world [ 7 , 8 ]; however, in the Amazon, these studies are still scarce and few studies see reporting the cacao fermentative microbiota [ 9 , 10 , 11 ].…”