Sweet and Salty: Sugar and Salt ratio effects on Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is used in multiple aspects of life, from baked goods to biofuels (French 2017). For this, we must have a complete understanding of how the process of yeast fermentation works. We know sugar plays a big part in the process (D’Amore et al. 1989), yet, there is little knowledge of how yeast reacts to NaCl during the process. Taking a deeper look into yeast and the growth of Saccharomyces cerevisiae when exposed to multiple ratios of sugar and salt 1:0, 0:1, and 1:1, we discovered the growth was still considerably high when exposed to salt and sugar. However, a simple sugar salt solution 0:1 had a less promising outlook of growth. Without sugar to aid in the fermentation process, the yeast was exposed to a toxic mineral resulting in high stress (Casey et al. 2013). It was unable to properly use fermentation. So in conclusion, our hypothesis is currently not supported by the data in our trials. There was a large increase in CO₂ when exposed to both sugar and salt. Further trials need to be done to accurately portray the salt and sugar relationship in fermentation.