Influence of temperature and nutrient strength on the susceptibility of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to heavy metals

Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01239650· OSTI ID:6520036

Hsu, T; Lee, L W; Chang, T H ^[1]

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1. Development Center for Biotechnology, Taiwan (China)

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is not only a key microorganism in brewing or fermentation processes, it has also been employed for monitoring aquatic pollutants. The major advantage of using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a bioassay system is that this yeast can be easily obtained as dry pellets from commercial sources at low cost. In addition to its economical aspect, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, like other microorganisms, is easy to handle, grows rapidly, and provides a large number of homogeneous individuals for utilization in toxicity tests. Although cell growth, cell viability, electron transport and mitochondrial respiration of Saccharomyces cerevisiaes have all been selected as parameters for toxicity assessment, measuring cell growth by absorbance is by farm the most convenient and rapid method when large amounts of water samples are to be tested. Mochida et al. (1988), however, reported that Saccharomyces cerevisiae was five to ten times less sensitive than cell culture systems to cadmium, mercury and nickel, when cell growth of both systems was monitored. This relative insensitivity to heavy metals might handicap the practical use of this yeast strain for bioassays. Since previous studies indicated that the susceptibility of microorganisms to environmental toxicants can be influenced by incubation temperature and nutrient strength, we attempted to examine the effect of incubation temperature and nutrient strength on the susceptibility of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to heavy metals in order to obtain the optimum bioassay sensitivity. In this study, we used cadmium and mercury as model toxicants. 9 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab.

• OSTI ID: 6520036
• Journal Information: Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology; (United States), Vol. 49:3; ISSN 0007-4861
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
CADMIUM
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
MERCURY
NUTRIENTS
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
SACCHAROMYCES CEREVISIAE
GROWTH
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
SENSITIVITY
ELEMENTS
EUMYCOTA
FUNGI
METALS
MICROORGANISMS
PLANTS
SACCHAROMYCES
YEASTS
560300* - Chemicals Metabolism & Toxicology