[Aspects of yeast biodiversity]

Yeast biodiversity represents a dynamic scientific domain characterized by permanent emerging theories and accumulation of new data. Identification of genome structure for a number of yeast species and elucidation of regulatory pathways for species-specific metabolic networks, lead to development of numerous applications of yeasts in industry, biotechnology, therapeutics and bioremediation. The studies of the scientific community were long time focused on Saccharomyces cerevisae due mainly to its use in food production. Therefore, the species belonging to Saccharomyces genus became reference points for genomics and biodiversity studies. During last decades there is a growing interest for yeast species able to produce biomass by assimilating or degrading various compounds such as methanol, hydrocarbons, wood hydrolisates and other residues or by-products from different industries.