Precision hydrolysis: tailored yeast processing enzymes for yeast-based products

Yeasts and yeast-based products are nutrient-rich bioresources with broad applications in technologies for the production of food, feed, medicine, and cosmetics. However, traditional processing often results in non-specific lysis and suboptimal product quality. Yeast extract can be used as a flavor enhancer, nutritional supplement, or fermentation substrate, and the other components of the yeast cell wall and nucleic acids can be processed into bioactive materials, including glucans and nucleotides. These materials offer both nutritional and therapeutic benefits. Precision hydrolysis, leveraging the high specificity of tailored enzymes, has emerged as a superior strategy for maximizing the yield and functional quality of high-value yeast-based products. It provides superior outcomes by improving the quality of yeast-based products. Tailored enzymatic strategies, leveraging mechanistically focused core enzymes, including proteases, β-glucanases, and coupled nucleases-deaminases, have demonstrated superior efficiency, nutritional enhancement, and sensory refinement. This review focuses on the mechanistic properties of yeast processing enzymes, emphasizing their functional classification and applications in precision hydrolysis. It details how such enzymes are optimized for the targeted release and modification of high-value components. Additionally, the review highlights recent strategies for tailored biosynthesis of yeast processing enzymes, including enzyme discovery, heterologous expression systems, and machine-learning-guided optimization. This review aims to support future innovations that will promote the development of sustainable, high-value, and diversified yeast-based bioproducts by optimizing the biosynthesis of processing enzymes, thus lowering the overall cost of precision hydrolysis. KEY POINTS: • Precision hydrolysis enables the controlled release of yeast components in a specific pattern, yielding high-quality, specific yeast-based products. • By leveraging the highly specific effects of enzymes, targeted product refinement and superior characteristics under mild processing conditions can be achieved. • To avoid the high cost of precision hydrolysis, continuous advances in enzyme discovery, protein engineering, and metabolic engineering technologies are vital.