Systems biology: a new paradigm for industrial yeast strain development

Abstract

One of the key challenges for industrial yeast strain development is to obtain a thorough understanding of the biology of yeast and to apply this knowledge to develop novel strains with improved features. The detailed study of individual biological components and the use of metabolic engineering have benefited the development of industrial strains enormously; however, such approaches have failed to describe yeast behaviour in the detail required to reveal the complex interactions operating within such biological systems. How can we accurately describe the biological processes and the interactions that occur during fermentation or cell growth?