Coordination of sucrose uptake and respiration in the yeast Debaryomyces yamadae.
Screening in batch cultures identified Debaryomyces yamadae as a yeast that exhibits the Kluyver effect for sucrose: this disaccharide can be respired but, even under oxygen-limited conditions, alcoholic fermentation of sucrose does not occur. Ethanol, glycerol and arabitol were the main fermentation products during oxygen-limited growth on glucose in chemostat cultures. None of these fermentation products were produced in oxygen-limited chemostat cultures grown on sucrose and the fraction of the sucrose that could not be respired remained unused in the culture medium. This absence of alcoholic fermentation was not due to repression of the key fermentative enzymes pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase. In contrast to some other yeasts that exhibit a Kluyver effect, D. yamadae did not exhibit a preference for ethanol in batch cultures grown on mixtures of ethanol and sucrose. Sucrose metabolism in D. yamadae involves intracellular hydrolysis by an alpha-glucosidase. Incubation of weakly buffered cell suspensions with sucrose led to a rapid transient alkalinization, indicating the presence of a sucrose-proton symport system. The apparent substrate saturation constant of the sucrose-uptake system was 0.2 mmol l-1. Sucrose-dependent alkalinization rates were much lower in samples from oxygen-limited cultures than in samples from aerobic cultures. Transient responses of D. yamadae to oxygen limitation were investigated by applying a sudden decrease in the oxygen feed to aerobic sugar-limited chemostat cultures. In glucose-grown cultures, this led to alcoholic fermentation and no significant accumulation of sugar occurred after the switch. In sucrose-limited cultures, sugar accumulation occurred instantaneously after the switch, and ethanol formation was virtually absent.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Kaliterna
J
J
Department of Microbiology and Enzymology, Kluyver Laboratory of Biotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.
Weusthuis
R A
RA
Castrillo
J I
JI
van Dijken
J P
JP
Pronk
J T
JT
D000332:Aerobiosis; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase / Q000378:metabolism; D001693:Biological Transport, Active; D018533:Biomass; D000431:Ethanol / Q000378:metabolism; D005285:Fermentation; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D017136:Ion Transport / Q000502:physiology; D007700:Kinetics; D010101:Oxygen Consumption; D011767:Pyruvate Decarboxylase / Q000378:metabolism; D013395:Sucrose / Q000378:metabolism*; D013997:Time Factors; D015003:Yeasts / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism*
D000431:Ethanol; D013395:Sucrose; D000426:Alcohol Dehydrogenase; D011767:Pyruvate Decarboxylase; D005947:Glucose