Effect of surfactants on extracellular accumulation of glutathione by Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The effects of representative surfactants on the growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae WSH-J701 and glutathione (GSH) production were studied. The anionic surfactant sodium dedecyl sulfate (SDS) and the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) had critical inhibitory concentrations of 0.5 and 0.025 g/l, respectively, to cell growth during cultivation. Above these concentrations, cell growth was greatly inhibited or even ceased. Nonionic surfactants such as polyoxyethylene lauryl ether (Brij30) and polyoxyethylene sorbitan monooleate (Tween80) could also affect cell growth only when their concentrations reached much higher levels. Under the critical concentration, SDS and CTAB increased the extracellular GSH concentration by 10 and 15%, but above this level, they improved extracellular GSH concentration by 35 and 60%, respectively. Otherwise, total GSH concentration and intracellular GSH content decreased slightly. The effect of Brij30 was somewhat like ionic surfactants, extracellular GSH concentration could be increased by 50% but the intracellular GSH content was reduced by 33%. Tween80 seemed to have no effect on extracellular GSH accumulation, but total GSH concentration and intracellular GSH content decreased gradually by increasing its concentration. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.