Synchronization of Glycolytic Oscillations in Intact Yeast Cells

In the glycolytic pathway, oscillations in metabolite concentrations occur in different organisms under different conditions1. In intact yeast cells, oscillations in glycolysis can be monitored by NAD(P)H fluorescence. For the induction of these oscillations, glucose is added to starved cells. After a steady state is reached, blocking respiration leads to oscillations in the NAD(P)H concentration with a frequency of 1.2 min-1 at a temperature of 25 °C. The damping of the oscillations depends on the state of growth before harvesting. Sustained oscillations can be observed when the cells are harvested at the transition from using glucose to ethanol as a substrate2. Furthermore there is evidence that the damping is also influenced by the cell concentration during the NAD(P)H measurement as first recognized by Pye3. This was interpreted as a consequence of intercellular communication4. In this paper we investigate the influence of the cell concentration on the duration of the oscillations and collect further evidence for intercellular communication.