The powerful function of <i>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> in food science and other fields: a critical review
Zhiluo Que, Shengnan Wang, Mengyuan Wei, Yulin Fang, Tingting Ma, Xiaoyu Wang, Xiangyu Sun
Abstract
<italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic> is the earliest domesticated fungus, researched deeply and widely used fungus.When used in food fermentation, <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic> has an important influence on quality, flavor and aroma of products. Future developments will focus on enhancing flavor diversity, increasing production efficiency, sustainability and product consistency, as well as improving the fermentation characteristics by using advanced technologies. <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic> is an ideal substrate for synthetic biology research, usually used in production of lactic acid, terpenes, steroids, vaccines, etc., which helps to reduce production cost, shorten production cycle, improve production capacity, and has a very broad application prospect. In addition, in the field of environmental protection, biofuel ethanol is one of the promising and popular fuel with potential for energy and environmental security. However, there are major challenges for <italic>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</italic> that use lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock to produce biofuel ethanol.