TY - JOUR
AU - Nielsen, Jens
AB - From ancient times, yeasts have been an integral part of our life through their use in the production of bread, beer, wine and spirits, and even today we make new discoveries on the role of different yeast species in wine (Jolly et al., 2014) and sake (Takada et al., 2014) production. In more recent times, yeast has also been exploited for the production of ethanol to be used as a transportation fuel, various food ingredients, dietary supplements, ingredients in cosmetics and perfumes, and many pharmaceutical proteins (Hou et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2012). With the objective to ensure sustainable production of biofuels, there has been much interest in engineering yeast metabolism to enable conversion of pentose sugars, in particular xylose, to ethanol (Kim et al., 2013), but also to more efficient biofuels like isobutanol (Brat & Boles, 2013). With these advancements, yeast will clearly have a very prominent role in a future bio-based society, where biomass will serve as a feedstock in replacement of fossil fuels for production of advanced biofuels, chemicals and materials. In order to reach these ambitious goals, it is important to continuously develop novel synthetic biology tools for rapid engineering of yeast metabolism (Jensen et al., 2014). Many yeasts also serve as human pathogens and due to the high similarity in physiology between human and yeast cells, it is challenging to identify antibiotics that do not have severe side effects (Abi-chacra et al., 2013), but through mechanistic studies of yeast metabolism and physiology, it is possible to identify the mode-of-action of antifungals (Gabriel et al., 2013). With the development of molecular biology, it became possible to study cellular processes at the molecular level and this called for the use of model organisms. Here, yeasts, and in particular Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, have served as very important eukaryal model organisms, resulting in several Nobel Prizes given to yeast researchers. Thus, studies of yeast resulted in identification of cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases that play a central role in the cell cycle of eukaryal cells. This discovery was honoured in 2001 by giving the Nobel Prize in Medicine to two prominent yeast researchers, Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell (they shared the prize with Tim Hunt, who had discovered the cyclins in sea urchin). Despite detailed mapping of the yeast cell cycle, there are still disputes over how individual cells expand during the cell cycle (Cooper, 2013; Horváth et al., 2013). Studies of the protein secretory pathway in yeast have also paved the way for improved understanding of this extremely complex pathway, and in 2013, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded, among others, to Randy Schekman for his discovery of the machinery involved in vesicle trafficking within yeast. This work is an excellent example of how fundamental research on yeast not only has an impact on our understanding of complex biological systems of relevance for human disease, but also can be used to engineer the secretory pathway for improved secretion of recombinant proteins (Hou et al., 2012, 2014). Another field where yeast has been actively used for studying fundamental biological processes is ageing and death. Even though it has been disputed why a single-cell organism should undergo apoptosis, the apoptotic pathway has been identified in yeast and this has opened up the use of this organism as a model organism also for studying ageing and cell death (Delaney et al., 2013; Mirisola et al., 2014; Wasko & Kaeberlein, 2014). From the above, it is clear that maintaining a strong yeast research community is very important for our societal development, as it will ensure advancement towards a bio-based community, for identification of novel treatment strategies for fungal infections, and for making novel, fundamental discoveries in eukaryal biology. So how can we maintain a strong yeast research community? This will not only require pioneering research where yeast is used as model organism or as cell factory, but also require a clear identity in the form of dedicated yeast conferences and yeast journals. Here, FEMS Yeast Research plays a central role as the leading yeast journal. FEMS Yeast Research publishes papers on all aspects of yeast molecular biology, genetics, genomics, physiology and metabolism, both when there is an applied angle to the research and when it is basic discoveries. I strongly believe that the synergy between basic and applied sciences is important, not only for fostering new ideas and posing new fundamental research questions but also for translating these to the benefit of the society. Covering the whole span of yeast research is therefore a particular strength of our journal. At FEMS Yeast Research, we have over the last couple of years worked on establishing the journal as the key focal point for the yeast research community through publishing thematic issues that include top-level Mini-reviews covering specific topics. Thus, in 2012, we had a thematic issue on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, from systems and synthetic biology to metabolic engineering and industrial biotechnology. This year we had a thematic issue on yeasts as model organisms for studying ageing and cell death. In 2015, we will have a thematic issue dedicated to synthetic biology and another one on pathogenic yeast, a topic we may exploit more in the future. To further illustrate the breath of applications of yeast as a model organism and industrial cell factory, we will also run a series of short commentaries by leading yeast researchers over the next year. We hereby hope to further strengthen FEMS Yeast Research's position as the leading journal in the field and to be a key component of nurturing the yeast research community. FEMS Yeast Research is the natural journal to take this role as we are a society journal, and all profits generated by the journal are used to support young yeast researchers to join conferences and carry out research exchanges. So we look forward to receiving your paper describing an excellent research contribution in the future. References Abi-chacra EA Souza Lucieri OP Cruz LP et al.   ( 2013) Phenotypical properties associated with virulence from clinical isolates belonging to the Candida parapsilosis complex. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 831– 848. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Brat D Boles E ( 2013) Isobutanol production from d-xylose by recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 241– 244. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Cooper S ( 2013) Schizosaccharomyces pombe grows exponentially during the division cycle with no rate change points. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 650– 658. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Delaney JR Chou A Olsen B et al.   ( 2013) End-of-life cell cycle arrest contributes to stochasticity of yeast replicative aging. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 267– 276. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Gabriel I Vetter ND Palmer DRJ Milewska MJ Wojciechowski M Milewski S ( 2013) Homoisocitrate dehydrogenase from Candida albicans: properties, inhibition, and targeting by an antifungal pro-drug. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 143– 155. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Horváth A Rácz-Mónus A Buchwald P Sveiczer A ( 2013) Cell length growth in fission yeast: an analysis of its bilinear character and the nature of its rate change transition. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 635– 649. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Hou J Tyo Keith EJ Liu Z Petranovic D Nielsen J ( 2012) Metabolic engineering of recombinant protein secretion by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FEMS Yeast Res  12: 491– 510. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Hou J Tang H Liu Z Österlund T Nielsen J Petranovic D ( 2014) Management of the endoplasmic reticulum stress by activation of the heat shock response in yeast. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 481– 494. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Jensen NB Strucko T Kildegaard KR David F Maury J Mortensen UH Forster J Nielsen J Borodina I ( 2014) EasyClone: method for iterative chromosomal integration of multiple genes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 238– 248. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Jolly NP Varela C Pretorius S ( 2014) Not your ordinary yeast: non-Saccharomyces yeasts in wine production uncovered. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 215– 237. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Kim I-K Roldão A Siewers V Nielsen J ( 2012) A systems-level approach for metabolic engineering of yeast cell factories. FEMS Yeast Res  12: 228– 248. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Kim SR Kwee NR Kim H Jin Y-S ( 2013) Feasibility of xylose fermentation by engineered Saccharomyces cerevisiae overexpressing endogenous aldose reductase (GRE3), xylitol dehydrogenase (XYL2), and xylulokinase (XYL3) from Scheffersomyces stipitis. FEMS Yeast Res  13: 312– 321. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Mirisola MG Braun RJ Petranovic D ( 2014) Approaches to study yeast cell aging and death. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 109– 118. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Takada Y Nishino Y Ito C Watanabe H Kanzaki K Tachibana T Azuma M ( 2014) Isolation and characterization of baker's yeast capable of strongly activating a macrophage. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 261– 269. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  Wasko BM Kaeberlein M ( 2014) Yeast replicative aging: a paradigm for defining conserved longevity interventions. FEMS Yeast Res  14: 148– 159. Google Scholar CrossRef Search ADS PubMed  © 2014 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. All rights reserved
TI - Maintaining a strong yeast research community
JF - FEMS Yeast Research
DO - 10.1111/1567-1364.12166
DA - 2014-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/maintaining-a-strong-yeast-research-community-HPlwPHI4rk
SP - 527
EP - 528
VL - 14
IS - 4
DP - DeepDyve
ER -