ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of yeast as host for the production of therapeutic and diagnostic proteins. Expression of a variety of different proteins that have potential therapeutic properties has been obtained, with different degrees of success, in yeast. As a complete overview will be too comprehensive, focus is placed on some prominent and recent examples. For medical applications, human lysozyme may be preferable to chicken lysozyme because of reduced allergic side effects. However, unlike chicken lysozyme, for which an abundant source exists and is currently exploited (i.e., egg white), human lysozyme cannot be provided in large quantities for commercial purposes. Yeast can also be used for the production of enzymes to be used as reagents in diagnostic tests.
