P169A: Isolation of industrial marine yeast

The majority of fermentations have been carried out using distilled or tap water. Seawater -which is cheap and contains a spectrum of nutritional minerals- can be a promising alternative to fresh water with the possibility of improving the overall economics of the process and contributing to overcoming fresh water crisis. Also, the high amount of salts in seawater can serve as selective agent against the microbial contamination in the bio-refineries, adding one more favor to the proses. Therefore, employing marine derived yeasts in industry seems to be important as they are able to propagate and produce their metabolites on seawater based medium. To date, only little information about marine yeasts and their industrial applications has been obtained. On the other hand, over the last century, terrestrial yeasts have received great attention due to their ability of producing many types of bioactive compounds. The handful research on marine yeasts that conducted in recent years proved that the marine yeasts have several promising features over the terrestrial ones, e.g. higher tolerance and higher productivity. This review gathers the most recent techniques used for marine yeast isolation and focuses on the latest achievement of marine yeast in industry. Also, it indicates the high potential of marine yeasts for the industry sector and their superiorities over the terrestrial ones.