Yeasts: providing questions and answers for modern biology.
Yeasts are to be found in virtually every conceivable niche on this planet and are amazingly varied in their shapes ('morphologies'), life cycles, metabolic capabilities, potentials for use in industrial processes, abilities to spoil food and drink or to act as dangerous human pathogens. This review describes four very different species of yeast to illustrate some of the diversity which exists and, in the case of one of them, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (the familiar baker's or brewer's yeast), the extent of both our knowledge and ignorance.
Dickinson
J R
JR
Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, UK. dickinson@cardiff.ac.uk
D002176:Candida albicans / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D012568:Schizosaccharomyces / Q000502:physiology; D015003:Yeasts / Q000502:physiology; D020068:Zygosaccharomyces