The
yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an important
model organism for
biological study, particularly for
genetics and
molecular biology. The entire
genome of this
species has been
base sequenced and it is used to do
research on the basic
cellular mechanics of
genetic replication,
DNA recombination,
cell division and
metabolism. This type of
yeast reproduces by
budding.
S. cerevisiae is also economically important in the food industry. It is used to ferment grain sugars to make beer and as baker's yeast for baking bread or making other food which requires rising by gas bubbles of carbon dioxide. It is also sometimes taken as a dietary supplement for protein, the B vitamins, and folic acid.
Some or all of the information in this writeup was taken from the science dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/; I oversaw the development of the dictionary (the website was mothballed in 1998) and believe I wrote the entry this writeup is partly or wholly based upon.