Modification of biochemical pathways in industrial yeasts

Yeasts have many applications in industrial food and beverage production. While these uses are often of ancient origin, modern demands for control of the amounts of process-derived compounds and for cost-effective processing can make it desirable to modify metabolic pathways of production yeasts. While the genetics of standard laboratory strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae are well described, industrial strains and species are less characterized, and many of them have a complicated genetic constitution. Nevertheless, their biochemical pathways can be modified, and the knowledge becoming available on the physiology of genetic reference strains of S. cerevisiae is a great help in directing the modifications of the industrial yeasts towards practical goals.