The manufacture of recombinant therapeutics is a fastest-developing section of therapeutic pharmaceuticals and presently plays a significant role in disease management. Yeasts are established eukaryotic host for heterologous protein production and offer distinctive benefits in synthesising pharmaceutical recombinants. Yeasts are proficient of vigorous growth on inexpensive media, easy for gene manipulations, and are capable of adding post translational changes of eukaryotes. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is model yeast that has been applied as a main host for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and is the major tool box for genetic studies; nevertheless, numerous other yeasts comprising Pichia pastoris, Kluyveromyces lactis, Hansenula polymorpha, and Yarrowia lipolytica have attained huge attention as non-conventional partners intended for the industrial manufacture of heterologous proteins. Here we review the advances in yeast gene manipulation tools and techniques for heterologous pharmaceutical protein synthesis. Application of secretory pathway engineering, glycosylation engineering strategies and fermentation scale-up strategies in customizing yeast cells for the synthesis of therapeutic proteins has been meticulously described.

Byssochlamys fulva AM130, a novel strain of filamentous fungus, could produce ethanol from glucose, xylose, and alkali pretreated rice straw (PRS), while the efficiencies were very low with PRS. Ethanol production of 11.84 g/L was attained by the fungus when grown in glucose, indicating that the limitations while growing on PRS were related to low hydrolytic efficiency. Enzyme profiling of the fungus showed 365 IU/ml of beta-glucosidase and 89 IU/ml of xylanase activity, while endoglucanase and filter paper activity were negligible, which accounts for the low hydrolytic efficiency. The fungus could survive for extended periods under oxygen-limited conditions and produce ethanol. The fungal mycelia could also be used for repeated cycles of anaerobic fermentation, wherein the ethanol yield improved with each consecutive cycle.