Effect of high Cu2+ stress on fermentation performance and copper biosorption of Saccharomyces cerevisiae during wine fermentation

Abstract The effect of high Cu2+ stress on fermentation performance and copper biosorption of Saccharomyces cerevisiae BH8 during wine fermentation was investigated in this paper. Under high Cu2+ stress, the cell growth and survival rate of yeast BH8 were inhibited. With different copper concentration, the effect on cell growth of yeast BH8 was different. What’s more, high Cu2+ stress could inhibit the fermentation property, alcohol production and reducing sugar utilization of yeast BH8 in Chardonnay grape must, but not significant. And the trend of the copper ion concentration falling down was consistent with the trend of yeast growth rising up, meanwhile the copper content was still much less than the initial concentration after fermentation. In addition, yeast BH8 showed a good fermenting property and copper removal ability under high Cu2+ stress. These results could provide certain reference and some new data for the wine industry to face the copper pollution risk.