Saccharomyces cerevisiae and DNA microarray analyses: what did we learn from it for a better understanding and...

Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been widely used in industrial fields such as in the production of alcoholic beverages and useful chemicals and in bakery. Since S. cerevisiae was the first organism whose genome sequence was determined in eukaryotes, genome-wide analysis systems such as DNA microarrays also developed early for this organism. Many researches related to the analysis of transcriptional profiles during the processes and transcriptional responses to the environmental stresses that are encountered during production processes using DNA microarray were reported in the literature. In addition, DNA microarrays can be used in detecting transcription factor binding sites and single nucleotide polymorphisms. In this paper, we review transcriptome analysis toward industrial production processes involving yeast, as in the case of wine, beer, and sake. Moreover, identification of the target genes for genetic manipulation to confer useful phenotypes, such as stress tolerance and high fermentation activity, and to improve production of target product in useful chemicals production using DNA microarray analysis is described. Finally, recent advances of DNA microarray analysis are briefly discussed.