Mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Candida utilis with increased susceptibility to digestive enzymes.

Mutants of Candida utilis and a haploid strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae were isolated, after ultraviolet light mutagenesis, which had increased sensitivities to snail gut enzymes (ses). Three of the five S. cerevisiae mutants tested had increased sensitivities to porcine pepsin, all were more susceptible to a sequential treatment with pepsin, lipase, peptidase, and trypsin, four were sensitive to osmotic shock, and two had increased glucan/mannan ratios in their cell walls. All combinations of mutants showed positive complementation in heterozygous diploids, although complementation between one pair, which had the same phenotype, was incomplete, indicating that four to five different cistrons were involved. All mutations were found to be recessive. Haploid strains bearing pairs of ses mutations were not markedly more sensitive to mammalian digestive enzymes than strains with single mutations. Rat-feeding experiments with three mutants and the parental strains indicated that the protein was efficiently utilized in all cases. Net protein ratios for the two mutants of S. cerevisiae tested were slightly higher than that for their parent, but the differences were of marginal significance.