There are about 1,500 different species of yeast. These single-celled organisms, which according to the classification belong to the kingdom of fungi, can be found almost everywhere, they grow well in soil and on the surface of plants and animals. We have selected the most interesting facts about yeast because they play a very important role in biotechnology and the food industry.
1. Baker’s yeast and brewer’s yeast are very small organisms and therefore can only be examined under a microscope. You can only see a colony of yeast consisting of at least one million cells by the naked eye.
2. The package of baker’s yeast, which is used for making bread contains about a billion cells.
3. Yeast has been used for thousands of years to make beer and wine. It is the yeast cells that convert sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
4. Brewer’s yeast contains a large number of B vitamins and is therefore very commonly used as a food supplement in medicine.
5. Yeast is used not only in the food industry but also in the production of biofuels. Yeast is involved in producing ethanol from cellulose.
6. However, not all yeast is useful, there are some species that can cause a variety of diseases in animals and humans.
7. A single yeast cell only lives for a few days, however, with constant reproduction under favorable conditions, a yeast colony can exist for a very long time.
8. A few species of yeast can reproduce by fission. In fission, cells grow to a certain size and divide into two equal cells, basically, the mother cell divides into two equal daughter cells.
9. Yeast shares some genes with humans so can also be used to test new drugs. Thousands of drugs can be tested on yeast cells containing mutated? human genes to see if the drugs can restore normal function.
10. Yeast is responsible for most of the flavor and aroma compounds in beer, it can change the taste and smell of beer in hundreds of ways (yeast contributes more than 600 different compounds that affect the flavor and aroma of beer).
