Development and application of RAPD-SCAR markers to identify intra-species hybrids of industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae

To overcome the drawbacks of protoplast fusion in industrial breeding, strain-specific molecular markers were applied to select hybrids of industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains. Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis was used to generate strain-specific RAPD markers for two industrial yeast strains, Z8 and Z9. For industrial and technical controls, two RAPD markers with non-coding regions were converted into stable Sequence Characterized Amplified Region (SCAR) markers. Hybrids of Z8 and Z9 were obtained by protoplast fusion in combination with SCAR markers and were found to increase ethanol production by 4.3–8.1%. Results suggested that protoplast fusion could be combined with RAPD-SCAR molecular markers and applied in industrial breeding instead of auxotrophic markers.