Biology
Saccharomyces kluyveri is a budding yeast related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or baker's yeast, the model organism intensively used in biochemistry, genetics and cell biology. S. cerevisiae and S. kluyveri have several fundamental differences that warrant genomic comparisons. First, like most cell types, S. kluyveri resorts to fermentation (degrading sugars in the absence of oxygen) only when oxygen is limiting. S. cerevisiae, on the other hand, prefers to carry out fermentation even in the presence of oxygen. This means that S. kluyveri makes a more efficient use of glucose for energy production. Therefore, S. kluyveri provides a contrasting model to one of the most unique features of S. cerevisiae. Second, S. kluyveri has a simpler genome organization than S. cerevisiae: it appears to have become a species before the whole genome duplication that occurred in the Saccharomyces lineage. As a result, its genome is smaller (about 9.5 million base pairs) than that of S. cerevisiae with fewer duplicated genes. Additionally, S. kluyveri is becoming more widely used as a model organism and for industrial applications, such as the production of proteins, since its biomass yield is greater than that of S. cerevisiae due to more efficient use of glucose.
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