Industrial Microorganisms: Saccharomyces cerevisiae and other Yeasts

Yeast was an early companion of mankind for the production of food and beverages. Due to the fact that this was one of the starting points for modern biotechnology, baker's yeast and closely related species have been – and still are to a great extent – the main production hosts for many biotech processes. However, while modern cell factory engineering allows for the redesign of the traditionally used yeast, rising awareness about biodiversity is leading to the development of many different yeast species to tackle specialized industrial tasks. In this chapter we briefly summarize recent developments in yeast biotechnology. For a more comprehensive overview, recent reviews about specialized topics have been included.