ABSTRACT
Since metabolic engineering was rst introduced to dene a new engineering sub-discipline [1] its development in yeast has been almost synonymous with metabolic engineering in baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. S. cerevisiae is not only the oldest industrially exploited microorganism, it is also the industrial microorganism used in the largest scale in facilities up to 6000 m3 representing annual sales for billions of Euros. Traditionally S. cerevisiae has been used for bread leavening and the production of beer, wine, distilled spirits, and industrial ethanol [2]. Recently focus has been on the production of fuel ethanol from renewable resources [3]. Similar to the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli (see Chapter 21), S. cerevisiae is an integral part of humanity and an organism for which considerable knowledge was acquired already in the pregenomic era [4,5].
