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Editorial
. 2014 Mar 6;13(1):34.
doi: 10.1186/1475-2859-13-34.

Yeast biotechnology: teaching the old dog new tricks

Diethard Mattanovich  1 , Michael Sauer, Brigitte Gasser
Affiliations
Editorial

Yeast biotechnology: teaching the old dog new tricks

Diethard Mattanovich et al. Microb Cell Fact. .

Abstract

Yeasts are regarded as the first microorganisms used by humans to process food and alcoholic beverages. The technology developed out of these ancient processes has been the basis for modern industrial biotechnology. Yeast biotechnology has gained great interest again in the last decades. Joining the potentials of genomics, metabolic engineering, systems and synthetic biology enables the production of numerous valuable products of primary and secondary metabolism, technical enzymes and biopharmaceutical proteins. An overview of emerging and established substrates and products of yeast biotechnology is provided and discussed in the light of the recent literature.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Substrates and products of yeast bioprocesses. Main carbon sources employed in yeast bioprocesses are derived from (A) corn starch, (B) cane or beet sugar, (C) lignocellulose (corn stover, straw, wood etc.) and (D) crude glycerol from biodiesel production. Different native and engineered yeast strains convert the substrate to products of (E) primary or (F) secondary metabolism, or (G) recombinant proteins. Whole cell biocatalysis is a special case where (H) a complex substrate is biochemically transformed to (I) a product by the metabolic activity of yeast cells. Chemical structures are illustrative images only.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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