Twenty‐Five Years of the Environmental Stress Response and the Enduring Power of Yeast in Stress Biology

All organisms must be able to sense and respond to adverse environments, especially those that threaten cellular integrity. The age of genomics clarified the breadth and specificity of cellular stress responses, including in free-living microbes directly exposed to a changing environment. The environmental stress response (ESR) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae was among the first responses defined at the transcriptome-wide level as a common program triggered by diverse types of stress. Since its original publication over 25 years ago, many studies have explored the role, regulation, and evolution of the ESR and underlying principles of stress defense. This perspective reviews the history of the ESR, recent insights and perspectives into its purpose and regulation, and remaining questions in stress biology primed for the power of yeast experimentation.