Development and validation of a TaqMan RT-PCR method for identification of mayonnaise spoilage yeast Pichia kudriavzevii.

Food spoilage and its contamination with yeast and mold is a serious problem of food industry. Despite the high fat content, mayonnaise is an attractive substrate for food spoilage microorganisms. The aim of this study was to develop a method for yeast identification in mayonnaise and to test commercially available mayonnaises for the presence of these contaminating microorganisms. Based on the sequencing of intergenic regions ITS1 and ITS2, we identified a yeast microorganism that causes mayonnaise spoilage. We found that DNA sequences were more than 99% identical to the GenBank DNA sequences from Pichia kudriavzevii. We developed a specific to P. kudriavzevii TaqMan probe and primers. The reaction conditions were optimized regarding to the components concentration and temperature cycle. The minimum amount of P. kudriavzevii DNA that could be detected by developed method was 50 fg. The minimal number of P. kudriavzevii cells that could be detected by developed method without pre-enrichment was 50. We tested verified method with DNAs from microorganisms of different taxonomic groups that were obtained from three collections of microorganisms. Finally, we analyzed 20 different brands of mayonnaise from 14 producers and 10 different brands of mayonnaise sauce from seven producers. We determined the Cq parameter that characterizes transition of the fluorescence curve to the logarithmic phase and, therefore, correlates with the extent of sample contamination with P. kudriavzevii yeast. P. kudriavzevii was detected in six analyzed samples of mayonnaise and one sample of mayonnaise sauce.