Abstract
Two strains of yeast (RA-74-2 and RA-912) showing superior fermenting ability at a high temperature were isolated from soils and wastewaters by an enrichment culture method. Based on the morphological and physiological charateristics, the two strains were identified as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Kluyveromyces marxianus, respectively. RA-74-2 was able to grow upto $43^{\circ}C$ and sustain similar fermenting ability in the temperatures range from 30 to $40^{\circ}C$. In addition, the sugar- and ethanol-tolerance of RA-74-2 were 30% (w/v) glucose and 10% (v/v) ethanol, which appeared to be higher than those of nine other industrial yeast strains currently being used in the alcohol factories. The thermotolerant ethanol fermenting yeast RA-912 showed identical growth in the temperatures range from 35 to $45^{\circ}C$ and was resistant to various heavy metals. The quality and quantity of byproducts of the isolated yeast strains in fermentation broth after fermentation at $40^{\circ}C$ and $45^{\circ}C$ were similiar with those obtained at $30^{\circ}C$. These results show that RA-74-2 can be adopted for the ethanol fermentation process where the expenses for cooling system is significant, and suggest that RA-912 may be applied in either SSF(simultaneous saccharification and fermentation) or Flash-fermentation process and RA-912 may be used as a gene donor for the development of thermotolerant ethanol-fermenting yeasts.