A single cell of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a diameter of 7.94 μm, and its size varies widely depending where it is at during the process of budding. S.cerevisiae can exist as a unicellular organism or a pseudo-hyphae. As a unicellular organism it exists as the yeast form, and as pseudohyphae form under nitrogen starvation ( Blaketer 1993). Unlike other fungi, it is not capable of forming a fruiting body. The cell wall of Saccharomyces have ester-linked lipids and a large chitin content. Its cell wall is very thick and layered which comes with many advantages when it comes to its stability and resistant in acidic environment. Its haploid form is the form used in the production of food, to inhibit reproduction thus have a tight control over population number within the food product. 

The genome of S. cerevisiae is one of the first species to be sequenced completely with 5885 different protein encoding genes as long as 12068 kilo bases ( Goffeau 1996).