Graduation Semester and Year
Spring 2026
Language
English
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Biology
Department
Biology
First Advisor
Dr. Dylan Parks
Second Advisor
Dr. Melissa Walsh
Third Advisor
Dr. Jeffrey Demuth
Abstract
In recent years, there has been an expanding interest in ameliorating the gut microbiome through the use of yeast probiotics, in contrast to the general focus on bacterial probiotics. The goal of this paper is to determine trends and variations in the probiotic evaluation of the yeast species Kluyveromyces marxianus, Pichia kudriavzevii, and Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. boulardii across 48 studies, and determine probiotic gene homology amongst the three yeasts. Much of the literature on novel yeast strains employs various approaches to assess probiotic efficacy. In this study, the evolutionary divergence of these three species of interest was also evaluated. Furthermore, annotated probiotic genes were used to determine the presence of homologous genes amongst the three species. Results showed that there were homologous genes within the probiotic orthogroups. The findings of this study ultimately highlight the need for further standardization in testing methods for probiotic yeasts and its importance in determining future probiotic strains.
Disciplines
Microbiology
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Hajizadeh, Mones J., "META-ANALYSIS OF PROBIOTIC YEAST FACTORS AND METHODOLOGIES" (2026). Biology Theses. 1.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/biology_theses2/1
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