**Abstract**

*Saccharomyces cerevisiae*, the budding yeast was long history as industrial baker's yeast due to its ability to produce numerous product such as ethanol, acetate, industrial bakers etc. Interestingly, this yeast was also important tools for studying biological mechanism in eukaryotic cells including aging, autophagy, mitochondrial response etc. *S. cerevisiae* has arisen as a powerful chemical and genetic screening platform, due to a rapid workflow with experimental amenability and the availability of a wide range of genetic mutant libraries. Calorie restriction (CR) as the reduction of nutrients intake could promote yeast longevity through some pathways such as inhibition of nutrient sensing target of rapamycin (TOR), serine–threonine kinase (SCH9), protein adenylate cyclase (AC), protein kinase A (PKA) and ras, reduced ethanol, acetic acid and apoptotic process. In addition, CR also induces the expression of antioxidative proteins, sirtuin2 (Sir2), autophagy and induction of mitochondrial yeast adaptive response. Three methods, spotting test; chronological life span (CLS) and replicative life span (RLS) assays, have been developed to study aging in *S. cerevisiae*. Here, we present strategies for pharmacological anti-aging screens in yeast, discuss common pitfalls and summarize studies that have used yeast for drug discovery.

**Keywords:** *Saccharomyces cerevisiae*, anti-aging, calorie restriction, spotting test, chronological life span, replicative life span
