K. lactis and other organisms i.e., Aspergillus niger var awamori and Escherichia coli K-12 are grown in fermenters to produce chymosin (rennet) on a commercial scale; this rennet, which replaces the conventional form obtained from slaughtered animals, is now widely used in cheese production.

Yeasts and fungi are ideal organisms for comparative genomic studies in eukaryotes because of their small and compact genomes and because they include a number of species such as Neurospora crassa, Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe, that have been, and continue to be, used extensively in genetic studies.

Complete sequencing and comparison of four hemiascomycetous yeasts has been undertaken for Nakaseomyces glabratus, Kluyveromyces lactis, Debaryomyces hansenii, and Yarrowia lipolytica.

They were selected on the basis of their phylogenetic positions and their specific interest as human pathogens, or as industrially or environmentally important yeasts.

[1] In the 1990s, few genes were known and analysed by scientists until the first genomic analysis was performed by a team of the Pasteur Institute of Paris.