Yeast species of diverse functionality in health sciences: A concise report
Authors: S. G. Borkar  , Kalindee Shinde  
Published: November 2023

The health of a living being is of paramount importance in productivity, which may be human productivity, animal productivity, crop plant productivity, or aquaculture productivity. Among the several pathogenic entities responsible to affect health, yeast is emerging as an important pathogen, while on the other hand; it is also being used as a probiotic agent in treating certain diseases of human and animals. These single-cell budding microorganisms are inhabitant of soil, water, and environment, and are associated with decomposing and fermenting material, living being, and agricultural crops and produce. These are specific in their association, activities, and role and belong to different genera/species. The most common yeast species that act as agents of human disease are species of Candida particularly Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, Candida glabrata, Candida parapsilosis, and Cryptococcus neoformans. Similarly, the most evident emerging yeast pathogens are Malassezia furfur, Trichosporon beigelii, Rhodotorula species, Hansenula anomala, Candida lusitaniae, and Candida krusei. The yeast responsible for animal infection and diseases mostly belongs to Candida species, the most important being C. albicans, C. glabrata, C. parapsilosis, C. tropicalis, and C.krusei besides some other candida species to cause various types of infectious diseases in animals. Cryptococcus neoformis and Cryptococcus gattii are other two important yeast of the Cryptococcus genus implicated in animal diseases. Other cryptococcus species like C. laurentii and C. albidus affect immunocompromised animals. The yeast Malassezia is also reported to cause disease in animals. Bird’s infections are mostly reported to cause by species of Candida. The yeast species useful as probiotics in the treatment of human health ailments includes Saccharomyces boulardii, while in the use of animal and poultry health is Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The yeast species known to cause disease infection in Marine animals include the ascomycetous yeasts which comprise 9 known species from four genera (viz. Candida, Meyerozyma, Kodamaea, and Wickerhamomyces), and the basidiomycetous yeasts comprises 10 known species from eight genera (viz. Vishniacozyma, Filobasidium, Naganishia, Papiliotrema, Sterigmatomyces, Cystobasidium, Rhodotorula, and Rhodosporidiobolus). The species with the highest occurrence is Rhodotorula mucilaginosa. The yeast species involved in plant growth-promoting activities directly or indirectly includes the species of Candida, Rhodotorula, Saccharomyces, Geotrichum, Williopsis, Hanseniaspora, Meyerozyma, Torulaspora, Trichosporon, Pichia, Debaryomyces, Lachanceae and Rhodosporidiu ; While the yeast species implicated in plant disease control activities includes Candida tropicals, Candida valida, Candida saitoana, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Saccharomyces kudriavzevii, Rhodotorula glutinis, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, Zygosaccharomyces bailli, Aureobasidium sp, Pichia caribaea, Geotrichum candidum, Trichosporon asahii and Eremothecium cymbalariae. The diverse functionality of these yeasts is discussed in this paper.