Food yeasts: occurrence, functions, and stress tolerance in the brewing of fermented foods

Abstract

With the rapid development of systems biology technology, there is a deeper understanding of the molecular biological mechanisms and physiological characteristics of microorganisms. Yeasts are widely used in the food industry with their excellent fermentation performances. While due to the complex environments of food production, yeasts have to suffer from various stress factors. Thus, elucidating the stress mechanisms of food yeasts and proposing potential strategies to improve tolerance have been widely concerned. This review summarized the recent signs of progress in the variety, functions, and stress tolerance of food yeasts. Firstly, the main food yeasts occurred in fermented foods, and the taxonomy levels are demonstrated. Then, the main functions of yeasts including aroma enhancer, safety performance enhancer, and fermentation period reducer are discussed. Finally, the stress response mechanisms of yeasts and the strategies to improve the stress tolerance of cells are reviewed. Based on sorting out these related recent researches systematically, we hope that this review can provide help and approaches to further exert the functions of food yeasts and improve food production efficiency.

Keywords:

• Food yeast
• flavor formation
• food safety
• envrionmental stress
• tolerance mechanisms
• improving strategies

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Liying Hao (State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University) for the technical support and discussion.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest, and this article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Data availability

No data was used for the research described in the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31871787, 31671849).