Yeasts are single-celled fungi, and while ‘fungus’ does not always sound positive, yeast has been part and parcel of human life for a very long time.
酵母是单细胞真菌，虽然“真菌”并不总是听起来很阳性，但酵母在很长一段时间以来一直是人类生活的一部分。
Every product that involves fermentation during its production process will have needed yeast at some point.
在生产过程中涉及发酵的每种产品在某个时候都需要酵母。
The bread we eat? The beer and wine we drink (which we drunkards have been doing for many thousands of years)? None of those would be possible without yeast.
我们吃的面包？ 我们喝的啤酒和葡萄酒(酒鬼们已经喝了数千年了 )？ 没有酵母，这些都不是不可能的。
From sugar to carbon dioxide and alcohol (Wikimedia commons, Arobson1) 从糖到二氧化碳和酒精(维基共享资源，Arobson1)One yeast in particular, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is very prevalent in brewing and baking (it’s also known as ‘baker’s yeast’). The reason for this is that this type of yeast is one of the microorganisms that performs a common and very useful type of fermentation: feed it carbohydrate (say from barley or flour) and it will produce ethanol (beer) and carbon dioxide (leavening agent for nice fluffy bread).
一种酵母，特别是酿酒酵母 ，在酿造和烘焙中非常普遍(也称为“面包酵母”)。 原因是这种酵母是进行常见且非常有用的发酵的微生物之一：以碳水化合物(例如大麦或面粉)为食，会产生乙醇(啤酒)和二氧化碳(膨松剂)用来制作蓬松的面包)。
However, beyond its cherished application in food and beverage production, S. cerevisiae has another very valuable use: as model organism in biological research.
但是，除了在食品和饮料生产中的珍贵应用外， 酿酒酵母还有另一个非常有价值的用途：作为生物学研究中的模型生物 。
Yeast has a few characteristics that make it an excellent study system. It grows rapidly and easy. But, at the same time, it is eukaryotic, which means that it shares a couple of properties with plant and animal cells, such as the presence of organelles within the cell. The yeast is capable of reproducing both sexually and asexually. And, finally, its genome has been fully sequenced (and can be consulted here). Almost a third of its genes are homologous (similar through shared ancestry) to several found in humans.
酵母具有一些特性，使其成为一个出色的学习系统。 它Swift而轻松地增长。 但是，它同时是真核的，这意味着它与动植物细胞具有一些特性，例如细胞内细胞器的存在。 酵母能够有性和无性繁殖。 最后，它的基因组已被完全测序(可以在此处查阅)。 其基因的近三分之一与人类中发现的几个基因同源 (通过共同祖先相似)。
All this means that S. cerevisiae has been extensively used in biological research on, for example, aging, DNA repair, gene functions, and so on.
所有这些意味着酿酒酵母已被广泛用于生物学研究，例如衰老 ， DNA修复 ， 基因功能等。
The ease of growth, the well-studied genome, and the option of introducing new genes through homologous recombination (a process through which chromosomes ‘exchange’ genetic material) additionally make this yeast a perfect mini-factory to churn out compounds we’re interested in, including those with medicinal use.
易于生长，基因组研究透彻，以及通过同源重组引入新基因的选择(染色体“交换”遗传物质的过程)使该酵母成为理想的微型工厂，可以生产出我们感兴趣的化合物在内，包括那些具有药用用途的药物。
Many of our current drugs are derived from plants, from aspirine to morphine to quinine.
我们目前的许多药物都来自植物 ，从阿司匹林到吗啡再到奎宁。
But relying on plants is not without risk. First of all, the medicinal compounds we’re interested in occur only in very small quantities in the plants. So, we need a lot of plants to get a significant amount of active compound. Second — as famines teach us — weather can seriously impact plant growth.
但是依靠植物并非没有风险。 首先，我们感兴趣的药用化合物仅在植物中少量出现。 因此，我们需要很多植物才能获得大量的活性化合物。 第二-饥荒告诉我们-天气会严重影响植物的生长。
We can, of course, figure out ways to synthesize the compounds ourselves. The problem here, though, is these compounds are large, complex molecules that are produced through long, complicated pathways with many steps.
我们当然可以找出自己合成化合物的方法。 但是，这里的问题是这些化合物是大的，复杂的分子，它们是通过长而复杂的途径分多个步骤产生的。
Maybe we can recruit yeast to do the work for us?
也许我们可以招募酵母来为我们做这项工作？
It seems that we can. In 2018, a team of researchers was able to have S. cerevisiae produce the cough suppressant noscapine at levels 18,000 times of those in the plants that naturally produce the chemical.
看来我们可以。 在2018年，一组研究人员能够使酿酒酵母产生的止咳药Noscapine的水平是天然产生该化学药品的植物中止咳药Noscapine的18,000倍。
More recently, scientists were able to engineer a complex pathway into S. cerevisiae that led to the production of tropane alkaloids, a group of molecules that is used to treat, for example, nausea, gastrointestinal problems, and neuromuscular disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
最近，科学家们能够设计出一条通往酿酒酵母的复杂途径，从而导致产生托烷生物碱 ，这是一种用于治疗恶心，胃肠道问题和帕金森氏病等神经肌肉疾病的分子。
They did this in a very interesting way. They let the yeast express 26 genes that produce compounds necessary for the complex pathway leading to the tropane alkaloids. The brilliant part, though, is that they compartmentalized the different steps of the pathway into the different structures within the yeast cell. This allows the different enzymes needed for different steps in the pathway to concentrate near each other and not be ‘in the way’ during previous or following steps. As written in a perspective on the study:
他们以一种非常有趣的方式做到了这一点。 他们让酵母表达了26个基因，这些基因产生了导致托烷生物碱的复杂途径所必需的化合物。 不过，最棒的部分是它们将途径的不同步骤划分为酵母细胞内的不同结构。 这使得途径中不同步骤所需的不同酶彼此靠近浓缩，而不会在之前或之后的步骤中“阻碍”。 正如对研究的看法所写：
Such separation of enzymes is therefore akin to what happens in chemical factories, in which different synthesis steps are conducted in different reactors, and so each step can be separately optimized to maximize productivity.
因此，酶的这种分离类似于在化学工厂中发生的情况，在化学工厂中，不同的合成步骤在不同的React器中进行，因此可以分别优化每个步骤以最大化生产率。
Maybe the factories of the future are no larger than a cell.
也许未来的工厂不超过一个单元。
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翻译自: https://medium.com/predict/using-yeast-to-make-medication-4f663a94247a
相关资源：论文研究 - 酵母如何告知我们健康老龄化