Publications by authors named "Francesca Comitini"

yeasts play a relevant role in the fermentation industry, showing controversial behavior. There is growing interest in these yeasts in the fermentation industry as beer and bioethanol production, while in winemaking, they are considered spoilage microorganisms mainly used to produce ethyl phenols. These compounds may alter wine's organoleptic characteristics, leading to significant economic loss.

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Article Synopsis
  • Functional foods are rapidly growing, and plant-based sources are increasingly being used to create alternatives to fermented milk products.
  • This study introduces blended wort-rooibos beverages fermented with various probiotic yeast strains for the first time, examining their nutritional and health benefits.
  • Findings showed that certain yeast strains demonstrated a balanced nutritional profile, high antioxidant capacity, and minimal impact on blood sugar levels, highlighting the potential health advantages of these beverages.
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The yeast ensures successful fermentation in winemaking, although the persistent use of commercial strains lead to the loss of aroma complexity of wines. Hence, the research of indigenous with proper oenological features and well adapted to specific wine-growing areas become of great interest for winemakers. Here, 206 pure cultures of were isolated from two wineries during a two-year sampling campaign and bio-typed through interdelta sequences analyses with the aim to evaluate the occurrence and persistence of the wild population linked to each winery.

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Probiotic microorganisms are used to improve the health and wellness of people and the research on this topic is of current relevance and interest. Fifty-five yeasts, coming from honeybee's ecosystem and belonging to Candida, Debaryomyces, Hanseniaspora, Lachancea, Metschnikowia, Meyerozyma, Starmerella and Zygosacchromyces genera and related different species, were evaluated for the probiotic traits. The resistance to gastrointestinal conditions, auto-aggregation, cell surface hydrophobicity or biofilm formation abilities as well as antimicrobial activity against common human pathogenic bacteria were evaluated.

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Non-alcoholic beer (NAB) and low-alcoholic beer (LAB) are taking over the market with growing sales. Sustainable recycling and valorization of exhausted brewer's spent grain (BSG) coming from craft beer is a relevant issue in the brewing process. In this work, recycled BSG and BSG + GJ (supplemented with 10% grape juice) were used as a wort substrate to inoculate , , and non-conventional yeasts to produce NABLAB craft beer.

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Honeybee (Apis mellifera) is an important agricultural pollinator and a model for sociality. In this study, a deep knowledge on yeast community characterizing the honeybees' environmental was carried out. For this, a total of 93 samples were collected: flowers as food sources, bee gut mycobiota, and bee products (bee pollen, bee bread, propolis), and processed using culture-dependent techniques and a molecular approach for identification.

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Currently, an increasing number of intolerant and vegan consumers are driving the market towards plant-based milk alternatives. Here, selected probiotic yeasts, belonging to the , and species, previously characterized for their aptitude to ferment animal milk, were tested in soy milk. Trials at different fermentation times with the developed yeast consortium (Yc) coinoculated with a lactic bacterium commercial strain were carried out.

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has attracted renewed interest in recent years, for its biotechnological potential linked to its ability to enhance the flavor and aroma complexity of wine. Sequential fermentations with a selected native strain of (DiSVA 130) and low-sulfite native strain of (DiSVA 709) were carried out to establish their contribution in biocontrol and the aroma profile. A first set of trials were conducted to evaluate the effect of the sulfur dioxide addition on pure and / sequential fermentations.

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Fermented food matrices, including beverages, can be defined as the result of the activity of complex microbial ecosystems where different microorganisms interact according to different biotic and abiotic factors. Certainly, in industrial production, the technological processes aim to control the fermentation to place safe foods on the market. Therefore, if food safety is the essential prerogative, consumers are increasingly oriented towards a healthy and conscious diet driving the production and consequently the applied research towards natural processes.

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Three killer toxins that were previously investigated, one excreted by Kluyveromyces wickerhamii and two by different strains of Wickerhamomyces anomalus, were produced at the pilot scale, lyophilized and characterized, and the formulates were assessed for their zymocidial effect against Brettanomyces bruxellensis spoilage yeast. A comparative analysis allowed the evaluation of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against a sensitive strain. Fungicidal and fungistatic concentrations were used to evaluate the cytocidal effect using a cytofluorimetric approach that confirmed the lethal effect of all lyophilized formulates against spoilage yeasts.

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During the last few years, consumer demand has been increasingly oriented to fermented foods with functional properties. This work proposed to use selected non-conventional yeasts (NCY) and in pure and mixed fermentation to produce craft beer fortified with hydrolyzed red lentils (HRL). For this, fermentation trials using pils wort (PW) and pils wort added with HRL (PWL) were carried out.

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Overall, 180 yeasts and bacteria isolated from the peel of citrus fruits were screened for their in vitro antagonistic activity against and , causative agents of green and blue mold of citrus fruits, respectively. Two yeast and three bacterial isolates were selected for their inhibitory activity on mycelium growth. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA and ITS rDNA sequences, the yeast isolates were identified as and while the bacterial isolates were identified as , and .

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This paper reports on a common experiment performed by 17 Research Units of the Italian Group of Microbiology of Vine and Wine (GMVV), which belongs to the Scientific Society SIMTREA, with the aim to validate a protocol for the characterization of wine strains of . For this purpose, two commercial strains (EC 1118 and AWRI796) were used to carry out inter-laboratory-scale comparative fermentations using both synthetic medium and grape musts and applying the same protocol to obtain reproducible, replicable, and statistically valid results. Ethanol yield, production of acetic acid, glycerol, higher alcohols, and other volatile compounds were assessed.

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Background: () is responsible for grape infection and damage to the winemaking and table grape sectors. Although anti- chemicals are available, they are considered unsustainable for resistance phenomenon and adverse effects on the environment and human health. Research is focused on developing alternative approaches, such as exploiting biological control agents (BCAs).

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Wine can be defined as a complex microbial ecosystem, where different microorganisms interact in the function of different biotic and abiotic factors. During natural fermentation, the effect of unpredictable interactions between microorganisms and environmental factors leads to the establishment of a complex and stable microbiota that will define the kinetics of the process and the final product. Controlled multistarter fermentation represents a microbial approach to achieve the dual purpose of having a less risky process and a distinctive final product.

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In the last few decades, the increase of ethanol in wine, due to global climate change and consumers' choice is one of the main concerns in winemaking. One of the most promising approaches in reducing the ethanol content in wine is the use of non- yeasts in co-fermentation or sequential fermentation with . In this work, we evaluate the use of and in sequential fermentation under aeration condition with the aim of reducing the ethanol content with valuable analytical profile.

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strain 18, isolated from a natural underground cheese ripening pit, secretes a mycocin named WA18 that inhibits wine spoilage yeasts belonging to species, with a broad-spectrum of activity. WA18 was purified, and the purified protein was digested with specific restriction enzymes (lysine K and arginine R cut sites). The LC-MS and LC-MS/MS analysis after enzymatic digestions revealed a molecular weight of 31 kDa.

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This review describes the researches performed in the last years to assess the impact of pesticide sub-lethal doses on soil microorganisms and non-target organisms in agricultural soil ecosystems. The overview was developed through the careful description and a critical analysis of three methodologies based on culture-independent approaches involving DNA extraction and sequencing (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, DGGE; next-generation sequencing, NGS) to characterize the microbial population and DNA damage assessment (comet assay) to determine the effect on soil invertebrates. The examination of the related published articles showed a continuous improvement of the possibility to detect the detrimental effect of the pesticides on soil microorganisms and non-target organisms at sub-lethal doses, i.

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Sulfites and sulfides are produced by yeasts in different amounts depending on different factors, including growth medium and specific strain variability. In natural must, some strains can produce an excess of sulfur compounds that confer unpleasant smells, inhibit malolactic fermentation and lead to health concerns for consumers. In organic wines and in sulfite-free wines the necessity to limit or avoid the presence of sulfide and sulfite requires the use of selected yeast strains that are low producers of sulfur compounds, with good fermentative and aromatic aptitudes.

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In the last decades, there has been a growing interest from consumers in their food choices. Organic, natural, less processed, functional, and pre-probiotic products were preferred. Although, var.

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One of the most important problems in the winemaking field is the increase of ethanol content in wine. Wines with high ethanol level negatively affect wine flavor and human health. In this study, we evaluated the use of a selected strain of in immobilized form and under different aeration conditions, to reduce the ethanol content evaluating the volatile profile of the resulting wines.

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Over the last decades there has been an increase in ethanol concentration in wine. High ethanol concentration may impact negatively wine flavor and can be associated with harmful effects on human health. In this study, we investigated a microbiological approach to reduce wine ethanol concentration, using three non-Saccharomyces yeast strains (Metschnikowia pulcherrima, Torulaspora delbrueckii and Zygosaccharomyces bailii) in sequential fermentations with S.

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Yeast species that colonize the surface of grape berries at harvest time play an important role during the winemaking process. In this study, the use of culturable microbial techniques permitted a quantitative and qualitative inventory of the different yeast species present on the grape berry surfaces of Montepulciano and Verdicchio varieties when treated with conventional and organic fungicides. The results show that the most widespread yeast species at harvest time were Aureobasidium pullulans and Hanseniaspora uvarum, which are considered normal resident species and independent of the grape varieties and treatments applied.

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The present study evaluated the impact of organic and conventional fungicide treatments compared with untreated samples (no fungicides were used) on the grape berry yeast community of the Montepulciano variety. The yeast dynamics during the spontaneous fermentation using culture-dependent and -independent methods was also evaluated. Results showed a reduction of yeast biodiversity by conventional treatments determining a negative influence on fermenting yeasts in favor of oxidative yeasts such as .

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Killer toxins are proteins that are often glycosylated and bind to specific receptors on the surface of their target microorganism, which is then killed through a target-specific mode of action. The killer phenotype is widespread among yeast and about 100 yeast killer species have been described to date. The spectrum of action of the killer toxins they produce targets spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms.

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