Physiological and genome-wide transcriptional responses of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to high carbon dioxide concentrations

Physiological effects of carbon dioxide and impact on genome-wide transcript profiles were analysed in chemostat cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In anaerobic, glucose-limited chemostat cultures grown at atmospheric pressure, cultivation under CO2-saturated conditions had only a marginal (<10%) impact on the biomass yield. Conversely, a 25% decrease of the biomass yield was found in aerobic, glucose-limited chemostat cultures aerated with a mixture of 79% CO2 and 21% O2. This observation indicated that respiratory metabolism is more sensitive to CO2 than fermentative metabolism. Consistent with the more pronounced physiological effects of CO2 in respiratory cultures, the number of CO2-responsive transcripts was higher in aerobic cultures than in anaerobic cultures. Many genes involved in mitochondrial functions showed a transcriptional response to elevated CO2 concentrations. This is consistent with an uncoupling effect of CO2 and/or intracellular bicarbonate on the mitochondrial inner membrane. Other transcripts that showed a significant transcriptional response to elevated CO2 included NCE103 (probably encoding carbonic anhydrase), PCK1 (encoding PEP carboxykinase) and members of the IMD gene family (encoding isozymes of inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase).