Ballistosporous yeasts: a review on systematics, cell differentiation, and their applications

Abstract:

Ballistosporous yeasts can catapult spores (called ballistospore), which consist of genera Bullera, Sporobolomyces and Sporidiobolus. They widely distribute in various environments. Ballistosporous yeasts mostly grow in the morphology of budding, ballistospore and mycelium in laboratory Sporidiobolus form the sexual spores by pairing. Owning to the development of molecular biology, the phylogenetic relationship between all kinds of ballistosporous yeasts become more clearly. This paper indicates that cell differentiation phenomenon exist in ballistosporous yeasts in combination with the research results in our lab, and conjectures cell differentiation would contribute to resist environmental stress. Consequently, ballistosporous yeast would be a potential model organism to explore mechanisms for stress resistance. Because the problems in food and environment are increasingly prominent, ballistosporous yeasts, which have ability to accumulate a large amount of useful metabolites (such as esters, pigments, enzymes) and also take part in environmental management, are paid more and more attention.