New research suggests 'unique duality' of wild and domesticated yeasts

New research from the University of Georgia suggests our familiarity with yeast traces back to the footsteps of our ancestors.

Humans domesticated baker’s yeast as early as 7000 BCE to make bread, beer, wine and sake. However, wild varieties of the same yeast species also live on trees. These domesticated and wild yeast look different genetically, but UGA researchers wanted to explore possible links between the two:

“Other studies had just started to show that baker’s yeast in forests are different, and some of my own work in Europe had shown that the forest populations were different than the domesticated populations,” said Douda Bensasson, corresponding author of the study and an associate professor in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Department of Plant Biology.

“But we wanted to go deeper and characterize the different groups in America and Europe.”

The study used publicly available data from all over the world and samples from tree bark in different regions, primarily the southeastern U.S. (Some samples were collected on UGA’s North Campus near the Arch.)

The researchers extracted and analyzed DNA from the yeast they found. They then used this data to compare their genetic makeup across different regions.

“We are seeing distinct subpopulations within continents,” said Jacqueline Peña, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate in UGA’s Department of Plant Biology. “And we’re seeing that, even though we had originally thought that these wild populations would be different, it seems as though they’re not completely separated from human activity.”

It still isn’t fully known how microbes like yeast live in their natural habitats. As such, the researchers warned that humans could be causing drastic changes to the environment without realizing it.

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Image: via Getty Images.