Release the Yeast: How glucose (a monosaccharide), corn sugar, and rice sugar (polysaccharides) affect CO2 production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) plays an important role in both bread and beer making. The growth rate of yeast can be affected by many things, however, our experiment focused on how yeast would metabolize various types of sugars in the forms of glucose, corn sugar, and rice sugar differently. We measured CO₂ production in yeast as it is a byproduct of fermentation, the process necessary to provide yeast with energy to grow. We hypothesized that glucose would yield a higher CO₂ output compared to the corn and rice sugar because glucose is a monosaccharide and a simpler sugar to break down while corn and rice sugar are polysaccharides. Our data showed that our hypothesis was supported; glucose produced a greater amount of CO₂ compared to the corn and rice sugar.