Determination of the Cellular Ion Concentration in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Using ICP-AES

Abstract

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been perceived over decades as a highly valuable model organism for the investigation of ion homeostasis. Indeed, many of the genes and biological systems that function in yeast ion homeostasis are conserved throughout unicellular eukaryotes to humans. In this context, measurement of the yeast cellular ionic content provides information regarding yeast response to gene deletion or exposure to chemicals for instance. We propose here a protocol that we tested for the analysis of 12 elements (Ba2+, Ca2+, Cd2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Fe2+, K+, Mg2+, Mn2+, Na+, Ni2+, Zn2+) in yeast using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES). This technique enables determination of the cellular content of numerous ions from one biological sample.