Carbonaceous materials derived from a variety of cheap and sustainable biomass have shown great potential as conductive substrates for the coating of pseudocapacitive materials. In this study, yeast-derived N-doped carbon microsphere/polyaniline (YC/PANI) composites are synthesized by an in situ polymerization approach, using yeasts as the carbon source and structural template. The self-templated hollow YC with good conductivity has many active sites for anchoring PANI, and alleviates the structure destruction caused by the redox reaction of PANI. Accordingly, the YC/polyaniline composite as a supercapacitor electrode exhibits a high specific capacitance (500 F g(-1) at a current density of 1 A g(-1)) and good rate capability in a three-electrode system. Additionally, the symmetric supercapacitor of the YC/polyaniline composite delivers a high capacitance (100 F g(-1) at 1 A g(-1)) and remarkable cycle life (95.4% of the initial capacitance maintenance after 5000 cycles). The uniform coating of PANI nanowires and robust structure stability of composites are responsible for excellent electrochemical properties. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.