Saccharomyces cerevisiae에서 myo-Inositol 결핍에 의한 Respiratory capacity의 감소

myo-Inositol, a growth factor for Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae), has been known to be incorporated into phosphatidylinositol (PI), which is a kind of phospholipid in the cell membrane, by a membrane-associated PI-synthesizing enzyme. The deficiency of myo-inositol in S. cerevisiae adversely affected the membrane structure and function. On the basis of biochemical functions of myo-inositol, the effect of deficiency of myo-inositol on the aerobic glucose metabolism was investigated by measuring specific oxygen uptake rate (Q$_{O2}$) used as an indicator representing the respiratory capacity of S. cerevisiae in batch and continuous cultures. The respiratory capacity of aerobic glucose metabolism in S. cerevisiae was also monitored after glucose pulse-addition in a continuous culture (D=0.2, 1/hr), in which glucose was utilized through respiratory metabolism. The deficiency of myo-inositol was found to lead to both the decrease of the maximum specific oxygen uptake rate (Q$_{O2max}$) observed from the batch as well as in the continuous culture experiment and the decrease of the respiratory capacity of aerobic glucose metabolism of S. cerevisiae determined from the glucose pulse-addition experiment, in which the glucose flux into respiratory and fermen- tative metabolism was quantitatively analyzed.