Microcalorimetric study of glucose permeation in microbial cells.

A microcalorimetric method for measuring the influence of extracellular glucose concentration on the rate of catabolism is described. This method has been applied to anaerobically growing cultures of Zymomonas mobilis and of a respiratory-deficient ("petite") mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (strain YFa). The Michaelian kinetics recorded with both organisms were apparently related to glucose transport. With Z. mobilis, it was found that, in the range of glucose concentrations at which this organism was growing exponentially, cell activity was limited by the maximal rate of the catabolic enzymes; at lower concentrations, glucose transport was the rate controlling step. The metabolic activity of yeast always depended on external glucose concentration; when this was lowered under a threshold, a change of kinetics took place. The microcalorimetric method described seems to be widely applicable to kinetic studies of the permeation of metabolizable substrates in microorganisms.