Isolation and characterization of yeasts associated with Turkish-style homemade dairy products and their potential as starter cultures

In this research, 56 yeast strains were isolated from different homemade dairy products in Turkey. Traditional and genotypic methods were used for the characterization of the yeast strains. Debaryomyces hansenii (82%) was the dominant species in all the studied samples and only this species was found in at least one sample from all the studied samples. The other isolates belonged to the species Candida haemulonii, Candida membranifaciens, Candida tropicalis, Candida zeylanoides, Kluyveromyves marxianus, Pichia anomala and Pichia guilliermondii. In the present study, the following properties were studied: lipolytic and proteolytic activities, the ability to grow at different temperatures, different values of pH, different concentrations of salt, and to assimilate and or ferment compounds like citrate, galactose, glucose, lactate, lactose. In conclusion, we found that TEM 16 and TEM 17 strains identifed as D. hansenii in this study have the potential to be used in the production of cheese in Turkey.