[Tolerance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to monoterpenes--a review]

Tolerance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to monoterpenes is important in both metabolic engineering of the yeast to produce these chemicals de novo and efficient use of biomass containing these chemicals. Understanding the mechanisms in the tolerance of S. cerevisiae to monoterpenes could facilitate the construction of yeast strains with enhanced monoterpenes resistance, and therefore improve related bioprocesses. Monoterpenes could disturb the redox balance in S. cerevisiae, therefore increase the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and result in cell death. S. cerevisiae has to systematically improve its antioxidative ability to deal with the ROS induced damage. The current review summarized the recent developments in demonstration of the tolerance of S. cerevisiae to different typical monoterpenes mainly from the aspect of the antioxidative mechanisms. Based on the analysis of the previous works, further attempts to demonstrate the mechanisms were proposed.