Saccharomyces Cerevisiae
I am proud to introduce myself as Saccharomyces Cerevisiae. When my name is
literally translated from Latin it means: “the sugar fungus of the beer”. I am what you call
“yeast”, which means that I am a unicellular fungus. I reproduce through a process called
budding. This is when my daughter cells split right from my side. At times this splitting
does not totally occur and instead chains of my cells will form. Cells of my type are
round and only about 5-10 micrometers in diameter. The type of cells that I have are
eukaryotic, which is the same as what is found in humans. This has proven to be very
helpful to humans studying my genome, but I will talk about that a little later. I am also
the most studied and modeled eukaryotic organism in molecular cell biology. I feel very
special.
As you can tell from my name, I am very useful to human beings. My main
purpose in serving humans has become in the production of beer. This has earned me the
nickname of brewer’s yeast, but I like my scientific name better. I am what you call topfermenting yeast. This means that in the brewing process I rise to the top of the
fermentation vessel, making the beers that use my kind of yeast what you call ales.
People also use different strains of my kind to produce other consumable goods. A
specific strain of my species is necessary to make different kinds of bread and also to
produce wine. Depending on the product desired, humans will use a strain of me that
produces more carbon dioxide (useful in bread making) or a strain that produces more
alcohol. I have been used for these purposes for many millennia. Therefore, it is safe to
say I have been helping humans for as long as I can remember.
I have also greatly enhanced human’s knowledge of genetics. My very small size
makes it easy to cultivate me in a small amount of space, which is always useful to
scientists. As I said before, I am also a eukaryotic cell and since that is the same type of
cell found in humans, studies of my species are easily applied to human genetics. I am the
first eukaryote to have its entire genome sequenced. Through the study of my species
humans have gained a great deal of knowledge in the processes of Mitosis and Meiosis. A
man named Lee Hartwell won a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2001 for his work on the
mitosis genes in my species. This knowledge can be applied to humans in many
beneficial ways and may possibly lead to important discoveries. Hopefully someday
diseases such as cancer can be cured with the use of knowledge from my very own
species.
I am the most common fungus in everyday human life and sometimes that makes
them take me for granted. Hopefully, now that you a little more about me and my
contributions to science you will not forget that without me there would be no bread,
wine or beer. Works Cited
http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/TOMS_FUNGI/dec2002.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccharomyces_cerevisiae