Growth requirements of pyruvate-decarboxylase-negative Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Pyruvate-decarboxylase (Pdc)-negative Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been rep orted to grow in batch cultures on glucose-containing complex media, but no t on defined glucose-containing media. By a combination of batch and chemos tat experiments it is demonstrated that even in complex media, Pdc(-) S. ce revisiae does not exhibit prolonged growth on glucose. Pdc- strains do grow in carbon-limited cultures on defined media containing glucose-acetate mix tures. The acetate requirement for glucose-limited growth, estimated experi mentally by continuously decreasing the acetate feed to chemostat cultures, matched the theoretical acetyl-CoA requirement for lipid and lysine synthe sis, consistent with the proposed role of pyruvate decarboxylase in the syn thesis of cytosolic acetyl-CoA. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.