The evolution of anaerobic growth in Saccharomycotina yeasts

Abstract

Humans rely on the ability of budding yeasts to grow without oxygen in industrial scale fermentations that produce beverages, foods, and biofuels. Oxygen is deeply woven into the energy metabolism and biosynthetic capabilities of budding yeasts. While diverse ecological habitats may provide wide varieties of different carbon and nitrogen sources for yeasts to utilize, there is no direct substitute for molecular oxygen, only a range of availability. Understanding how a small subset of budding yeasts evolved the ability to grow without oxygen could expand the set of useful species in industrial scale fermentations as well as provide insight into the cryptic field of yeast ecology. However, we still do not yet appreciate the full breadth of species that can growth without oxygen, what genes underlie this adaptation, and how these genes have evolved.