Technical note: use of internal transcribed spacer for ruminal yeast identification in dairy cows

Molecular techniques are important tools for microbiological studies in different habitats, and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) has been proved to be useful for analyzing fungal diversity. The aim of this study was to use the ITS region to generate ruminal yeast profile and to identify ruminal yeast. DNA from ruminal digesta was extracted to amplify the ribosomal ITS region. The profile from the PCR products was visualized and the excised bands from the profile were identified as the genera Millerozyma, Pichia, Rhizomucor and Hyphopichia. Overall, the ITS resulted to be a simple, fast and sensitive approach that allowed profiling and identification of ruminal yeast that have not been previously described (Millerozyma and Hyphopichia) in the rumen microbial community.