Table 1.

Metabolic, physiological and genetic features of S. cerevisiae and S. boulardii. The data shown was collected from several studies [11,12,13,16,17,18,19,20,21].

Features		S. Cerevisiae	S. Boulardii
Optimal growth temperature [12]		30 °C	37 °C
High temperature resistance (52 °C) [12]		45% viability	65% viability
Acid pH resistance (pH = 2 for one hour) [12,18]		No—30% viability	Yes—75% viability
Tolerance to bile acids (>0.3%(w/v)) [12]		No—Survival up to 0.15% (w/v)	No—Survival up to 0.10% (w/v)
Basic pH resistance (pH = 8) [12,18]		Yes	Yes
Assimilation of galactose [16,17,19]		Yes	No
Ploidy [18]		Diploid or haploid	Always diploid
Homo or heterothallic [11]		Homothallic	Homothallic
Mating type [13]		Both	Both
Sporulation [16,18]		Sporogenous	Asporogenous, but produces fertile hybrids with S. cerevisiae
Pseudo-hyphal switching [18]		Normal	Increased
Retrotransposon (Ty elements) [11]		Intact Ty elements	No intact Ty1, 3 or 4 elements
Adhesion to epithelial cells	Normal microbiome (mice and human) [18,20]	No	No
	Gnotobiotic mice [21]	Unknown	Yes
	Humans treated with ampicillin [20]	Unknown	Yes