Abstract
Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the best studied eukaryote and a valuable tool for most aspects of basic research on eukaryotic organisms. This is due to its unicellular nature, which often simplifies matters, offering the combination of the facts that nearly all biological functions found in eukaryotes are also present and well conserved in S. cerevisiae. In addition, it is also easily amenable to genetic manipulation. Moreover, unlike other model organisms, S. cerevisiae is concomitantly of great importance for various biotechnological applications, some of which date back to several thousands of years. S. cerevisiae's biotechnological usefulness resides in its unique biological characteristics, i.e., its fermentation capacity, accompanied by the production of alcohol and CO2 and its resilience to adverse conditions of osmolarity and low pH. Among the most prominent applications involving the use of S. cerevisiae are the ones in food, beverage -especially wine- and biofuel production industries. This review focuses exactly on the function of S. cerevisiae in these applications, alone or in conjunction with other useful microorganisms involved in these processes. Furthermore, various aspects of the potential of the reservoir of wild, environmental, S. cerevisiae isolates are examined under the perspective of their use for such applications.
Highlights
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) is a unicellular fungus, possessing a nuclear genomic DNA of 12068 kilobases organized in 16 chromosomes [1]
Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the best studied eukaryote and a valuable tool for most aspects of basic research on eukaryotic organisms. This is due to its unicellular nature, which often simplifies matters, offering the combination of the facts that most biological functions found in eukaryotes are present and well conserved in S. cerevisiae
This review focuses exactly on the function of S. cerevisiae in these applications, alone or in conjunction with other useful microorganisms involved in these processes
Summary
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) is a unicellular fungus, possessing a nuclear genomic DNA of 12068 kilobases (kb) organized in 16 chromosomes [1]. S. cerevisiae is found in very low populations in vineyards or grapes, prevails fermentation by dominating over the other yeast species abundant in natural must as it is able to overcome all fermentation stresses [28,31] This is the reason it has gained itself the title of ‘the wine yeast’ being the main workhorse of the wine industry worldwide [31]. Given the fact that the microflora of the vineyards is characteristic, demonstrating the existence of a nonrandom microbial-terroir, depending on regional, varietal and climatic factors, it is concluded that there is a rich source of indigenous S. cerevisiae strains to be exploited by the wine industry [67] To this end, this practice can guarantee the preserving of the microbial biodiversity and the improvement of product quality leading to better consumer acceptance and higher economic profit of the wine industries. The mixed starters are applied in a co-, or sequential fashion and often in varying ratios of cell numbers
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