Home • Saccharomyces cerevisiae YB210 v1.0
Saccharomyces cerevisiae at 100X
Image Credit: Lucas Parreiras and Matt Wisniewski

The yeast species, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been extensively used as a microbial biocatalyst for the production of fuel ethanol from grain and cane sugar.  However, due to concerns over sustainability and public perception, there is now a requirement for biofuels generated from renewable resources, such as plant biomass and agricultural residues.  During the pretreatment of plant feedstocks for enzymatic saccharification, degradation products are generated that impose stress on S. cerevisiae, which ultimately leads to decreases in the yield and rate of ethanol production.  Unfortunately, many of the commonly-used and fully sequenced laboratory strains of S. cerevisiae are significantly impaired by these degradation products, making them less suitable hosts for molecular and genetic studies on lignocellulosic stress tolerance.  The S. cerevisiae strain, NRLL YB-210, was identified for its growth tolerance in a variety of stress-inducing conditions, including some in common with lignocellulosic fermentation.  The NRLL YB-210 (also known as CBS 6333) strain was isolated by L. Wickerham from a rotting banana in Costa Rica (Mortimer and Johnston, Genetics. 1986 May;113(1):35-43) and is publically available from the USDA Agricultural Research Service Culture Collection and the CBS-KNAW Fungal Biodiversity Center.  Comparative genome sequence analysis of YB-210, along with other stress-tolerant strains, to sequenced sensitive strains will allow for a better understanding of the genetic determinants for stress tolerance during lignocellulosic fermentation processes.