Sodium Phosphate is the Yeast of Your Concerns: How Sodium Phosphate Concentration Affects Cell Growth in Yeast

Abstract

Sodium Phosphate is an essential compound that is responsible for cellular respiration and growth in baker’s yeast cells (Saccaromyces cerevisae). We hypothesized that high concentrations of sodium phosphate (1,000μM and above) will yield the least amount of cell growth because too much of sodium phosphate will cause essential growth enzymes and proteins to denature. We tested the amount of cell growth within five groups of yeast solutions containing varied concentrations of sodium phosphate in two trials, each lasting 7 days. We recorded the initial and final amounts of cells present in each group. Our results yielded a lower cell growth rate for groups that contained sodium phosphate concentrations of 1,000μM and above. Therefore, the results of our experiment support our hypothesis that extremely high concentrations of sodium phosphate will denature growth enzymes and proteins within the cell, yielding the lowest rate of cell growth.