Tehran University of Medical Sciences Iranian Journal of Microbiology 2008-3289 10 3 2018 07 15 180 186 EN Mohaddaseh Ramezani Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Seyed Masoud Hosseini Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran Seyed Abolhassan Shahzadeh Fazeli Microorganisms Bank, Iranian Biological Resource Centre (IBRC), ACECR, Tehran, Iran AND Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences and Advanced Technologies in Biology, University of Sciences and Culture, Tehran, Iran Mohammad Ali Amoozegar Microorganisms Bank, Iranian Biological Resource Centre (IBRC), ACECR, Tehran, Iran AND Extremophiles Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of Living Organisms, College of Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Javad Fakhari Department of Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran 2016 12 26 2017 05 09 Background and Objectives: The microbial communities of traditional milk-based food are of great importance in its manufacturing process, especially when using raw milk with natural cultures. Liqvan (Lighvan or Levan) is a traditional Iranian buried cheese, which is made from raw ewe´s milk without a starter addition. The aim of this study was to explore the fungal active population during this cheese manufacturing process by comparing DNA and RNA based culture independent method Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE). Materials and Methods: Four samples of each milk, curd and ripened cheese were collected from Liqvan village located in East Azerbaijan province of Iran. Total DNA and RNA of each sample were extracted and PCR amplicons of D1 region of 26S rRNA gene was targeted for DGGE analysis. This method applied at both DNA and RNA levels in order to examine which taxonomic groups of fungi are active at each step of ripening. Results: DGGE profiles of yeast amplicons showed different results between extracted DNA and RNA during ripening process. However, the main group that is present in all stages of ripening process belongs to the genus Candida although Kluyveromyces, Pichia, Galactomyces, Saccharomyces and Cryptococcus are most abundant fungi. Conclusion: As no starter culture added to Liqvan cheese it seems fungal diversity are mainly rely on the indigenous microbiota of milk. Furthermore, the percentage of the dominant fungal genera from the total sequences differed among DNA and cDNA libraries. https://ijm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijm/article/view/1232 https://ijm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijm/article/download/1232/803