摘要：Functional food has been a practical mean to be used for health promotion and morbidity
compression in the aging population. The discovery and development of bioactive substances
with aging modulation actions are critical steps for more potent and safer functional food for
aging modulation. Budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), as a single-cell eukaryotic
organism, displays genes, molecular and cellular mechanisms conserved with mammalians. It
is a well-developed model for replicative and chronological aging in mammalians. This model
organism, with its amenability by genetic and molecular tools, have thus served well for
discovering bioactive compounds for aging modulation and health promotion of a variety of
age-related health conditions in humans.
In this paper, we have, by synthesizing existing literature, summarized the characteristics
of the budding yeast as a practical model for aging for mammalians including humans, then
conceptualized a framework for discovering bioactive compounds using yeast cellular system
for aging modulations for functional food research and industry. This framework consists of
four components: uncovering targets for aging modulation, discovering and validating diet
restriction mimetics, acting as cellular systems for screening natural products or synthetic
compounds for aging modulation and being a biological factory for producing bioactive
compounds according to the roles the yeast systems play. While these four components are
continuously being harnessed in both research and industry, the last component of being a
biological factory for producing bioactive compounds has largely unexplored, thus presenting
a novel opportunity for the functional food industry.
其他摘要：Background: Discovery of bioactive substances contained in functional food and the mechanism of their aging modulation are imperative steps in developing better, potent and safer functional food for promoting health and compression of morbidity in the aging population. Budding yeast ( Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) is invaluable model organism for aging modulation and bioactive compounds discovery. In this paper we have conceptualised a framework for achieving such aim. This framework consists of four components: discovering targets for aging modulation, discovering and validating caloric restriction mimetics, acting as cellular systems for screening natural products or compounds for aging modulation and being a biological factory for producing bioactive compounds according to the roles the yeast systems play. It have been argued that the component of being a biological factory for producing bioactive compounds has much underexplored which also present an opportunity for new active substance discovery and validation for health promotion in functional food industry.
