New Test-system Based on the Evaluation of Yeast Cells Resistance to Dehydration-rehydration Stress

Diana Borovikova,Alexander Rapoport,Indrikis Muiznieks

doi:10.2174/1874070701509010049

Abstract

A new test-system was developed for rapid evaluation of the cytoprotective potential of substances which can be included in cosmetics and health care compositions. It was evaluated by changes of the viability of yeast cells after dehydration/rehydration (D/R) treatment. To check the efficiency of proposed test system we studied the effects of water extracts of the natural peloid, which are used in balneotherapy procedures. It was revealed that the resistance to D/R of cells incubated in peloid water extracts (PWE) was significantly increased (by 30-38%) already after their short incubation in the solutions with low concentrations of the PWE. Meanwhile the membrane permeability was significantly decreased after incubation with PWE. The viability of yeast cells which were more sensitive to D/R stress was increased by PWE to larger extent than the viability of the cells that were initially more resistant to this stress. The positive effect PWE upon yeast cell viability after D/R treatment can be linked with the stabilisation of the cells’ plasma membrane. The results obtained in this study indicate that this new test-system can be recommended as fast, simple and cost-efficient assay for the evaluation of various substances effects upon eukaryotic cells including also the ingredients for cosmetic products.

Highlights

The yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an excellent cell model for multitude of physiological processes in higher eukaryotes due to the similarities in the structure of the cells, main pathways of cellular metabolism, DNA replication, recombination and repair, RNA transcription and translation, intracellular trafficking etc. 1, 2
Considering all information accumulated during the studies of anhydrobiosis in yeast we proposed the idea that application of dehydration-rehydration stress to a yeast model can be rather helpful for the understanding of possible changes in the physiological state of the cells in response to their treatments by any substance which can be interesting for researchers
In our experiments yeast cells from the stationary growth phase of the culture were incubated in peloid water extracts (PWE) for 25 min and for 3 h

Summary

Introduction

The yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is an excellent cell model for multitude of physiological processes in higher eukaryotes due to the similarities in the structure of the cells, main pathways of cellular metabolism, DNA replication, recombination and repair, RNA transcription and translation, intracellular trafficking etc. 1, 2. For the development of the test systems yeasts are excellent candidate organisms due to their rapid and cost-efficient reproduction and due to the lack of the ethical problems associated to the animal models. During the last decades yeasts have been frequently used as an efficient model in the studies of various processes in higher eukaryotic organisms including cancer research and to identify molecular mechanisms of human diseases 1, 2, 6 , test possible toxicity of new drugs 7, 8 , screen for the antioxidant activity 9 , study oxidative modifications of proteins 10 , in ageing and apoptosis research 11-13 ; neurodegeneration research 6 , for the understanding the mechanisms of drugs activities 14 , etc.

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