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Adamis (1949, 1950) described a modified Stantial (1935) acetate medium consisting of low concentrations of glucose, so(lium acetate, and agar upon which he obtained high yields of asei with a large number of yeast cultures. Although, in his original experiments, Adams (1949) tested a variety of acetate salts, including potassium acetate, he found none of them superior to sodium acetate in about 0.24 per cent concentration. These reports have been followed by a rather extensive series of papers in which Adams' sodium acetate medium has been used with only slight mo(lificatioiis. These include the hybridization and genetic studies of Fowell (1952, 1955) and the extensive studies of physiological factors affecting yeast sporulation on soditum acetate medium of Adams and Miller (1954); Miller et al. (1957a, b);

No abstract

Usual concentrations of antimycin A, rotenone and EDTA, individually or in combination, reduced aerobic growth rate and cell yield of Candida albicans to about half its normal level and to about the levels of previously-described acetate-negative, cytochrome-complete and aa3-deficient variants which were little affected by the inhibitors. Anaerobic conditions (not affected by antimycin A) reduced growth rate and cell yield of all cultures-including that of a nonrespiring aa3, b-deficient mutant-to low, equal levels. Antimycin A but not rotenone prevented growth of the normal strain on ethanol medium. Cyanide and antimycin A blocked most of the respiration of the normal strain and cytochrome-complete variant, but did not affect that of the cytochrome aa3-deficient mutant. Rotenone and EDTA did not affect respiration of any of the cultures. SHAM blocked cyanide-and antimycin A-insensitive respiration and prolonged the lag phases of the three respiring cultures, especially in the presence of antimycin A, but alone increased oxygen-uptake rate of the cytochrome-complete cultures while curtailing that of the cytochrome aa3-deficient mutant. Resting cells, especially wild-type, grown in medium containing antimycin A exhibited lowered oxygen-uptake rate, which was increased upon the addition of cyanide or antimycin A. Antimycin A stimulated, but cyanide inhibited, respiration of cytochrome-complete cultures grown in the presence of rotenone but did not affect that of the cytochrome aa3-deficient mutant. SHAM inhibited respiration of all antimycin A- or rotenone-grown cultures. The high rate of respiration of C. albicans in the presence of inhibitors for three sites of electron transport in the conventional oxidative pathway, the inhibition of this respiration by SHAM and its loss by the absence of cytochrome b, indicate an alternate oxidative pathway in this organism which crosses the conventional one at cytochrome b.

Comparative studies were made on the destructive effects of certain basic proteins on a strain of Candida albicans and two of its respiration-impaired mutants. Both by direct plate counts of survivors and by quantitative ultraviolet spectrophotometric analyses of released cellular constituents, the respiration-impaired mutants were less vulnerable to the destructive actions of the basic proteins than were ordinary wild-type cells. The lethal incidence and the ultraviolet absorbing cellular substances released from wild-type cells by the proteins were markedly decreased in the presence of the oxidative phosphorylation uncouplers sodium azide, 2,4-dinitrophenol, and salicylanide and approximately equal to the effects produced on an oxidative phosphorylation mutant not treated with the uncouplers. The heightened resistance of a culture through mutational or chemical impairment of its respiratory system suggests a role of metabolic energy in the destructive action of various basic proteins on yeast cells.