The Effects of ZnO Nanoparticles in Combination with Alcohol on Biosynthetic Potential of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

This paper reports about experimental results concerning the influence of 30 nm ZnO nanoparticles on biomass, carbohydrates, β-glucans, proteins accumulation and catalase enzyme activity at Saccharomyces cerevisiae CNMN-Y-20 yeast strain exposed to alcohol action. Alcohol in concentrations of 2%, 5% and 10% added to culture medium has been reported to stimulate β-glucans biosynthesis and to inhibit protein synthesis. Low biomass production, with 71% less that control, was detected in the experiments with 10% alcohol. ZnO nanoparticles in combination with alcohol do not offer sufficient protection for the proteins biosynthesis, but efficiently protect the carbohydrates and β-glucans biosynthetic processes, which contents in the biomass are with 16.6% and 19.9% higher than control, respectively. The maximum value of β-glucans content was established in case of cultivation of selected yeast strain on YPD medium supplemented with 5 mg/L nanoparticles ZnO and 2% alcohol. The obtained results allowed the elaboration of new procedure for directed synthesis of β-glucans that contributed to an increase of this component with 30.7%, compared to control.

Keywords

• saccharomyces cerevisiae
• nanoparticles
• alcohol
• biomass production
• carbohydrates
• β-glucans
• proteins
• catalase activity