Quantitative analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae's growth and metabolism on sucrose

Abstract

In recent decades, there has been an increase demand for renewable sources of energy and chemicals in replacement of their fossil-based counterparts to tackle the economic, social, and environmental issues associated with the processing and use of petrochemicals by humanity. Sucrose has proven to be a suitable alternative feedstock to substitute petroleum for the commercial manufacture of not only fuel ethanol but also higher value-added compounds, such as trans β-farnesene and polyethylene. And there is a great potential to expand this portfolio. Besides its low market price, sucrose is also advantageous to industrial applications owing to its ready-to-use property that results in reduced overall production costs. Industrial sucrose-based microbial fermentation is feasible to a great extent due to the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae’s natural ability to metabolize this sugar at high rates. Also, yeast’s robustness under harsh industrial conditions, its simple nutritional requirements and the availability of modern genetic tools for the engineering of taylor-made strain has made it an appropriate catalyst in a wide range of bioprocesses. In spite of all this, S. cerevisiae's physiology on sucrose, as well as the regulatory mechanisms triggered by this disaccharide in yeast are still rather under-researched topics.