酵母是一种单细胞真核生物，基于自身诸多优势而成为生物化学、遗传学和细胞生物学的重要研究模型。借助酵母无细胞体系阐明了酶的功能、酶的构成、辅酶特性、tRNA结构和真核转录机制等。酵母作为模式生物在细胞周期、囊泡运输、细胞自噬、端粒保护、蛋白质折叠、未折叠蛋白应答、DNA损伤应答、雷帕霉素靶点和组蛋白调节等重大发现中做出了根本性贡献。许多科学家也因此荣获诺贝尔奖。本文全面介绍酵母在科研中的应用价值。

Yeast is a unicellular eukaryote and become an important experimental organism in biochemistry, genetics and cell biology on the basis of its many advantages. In vitro experiment, cell-free yeast system plays an important role in enzyme function, enzyme composition, coenzyme characteristics, tRNA structure, eukaryotic transcription, and so on. As a model organism, yeast also played a fundamental contribution in many great discoveries including cell cycle, vesicular transport, cell autophagy, telomere protection, protein folding, unfolded protein response, DNA damage response, target of rapamycin and histone regulation. Many scientists won the Nobel Prize for these discoveries. In this article, the application and significance of yeast in scientific researches are introduced.