SPECTROPHOTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF YEASTS: CYTOCHROME SPECTRA OF SOME CANDIDA AND RELATED TAXA

Abstract

Whole-cell pastes of eight Candida species and their suggested teleomorph counterparts in the genera Pichia and Issatchenkia analyzed were spectrophotometrically. All of these yeasts, included in the two very closely related groups "krusei" and "norvegensis, " showed strong similarities in their low-temperature cytochrome absorption spectra, especially in two typical peaks, generally at 597-597.5nm and 605-606.5nm or in some cases at 593.5-594.5nm and 601.5-602nm, in the spectral region of the α maximum absorption of cytochrome aa₃. In addition, the two species of each assumed pair of perfect and imperfect yeasts, I. orientalis/C. krusei, I.
occidentalis/C. sorbosa, P. fermentans/C. lambica, P. nakasei/C. citrea or P. norvegensis/C. norvegensis were indistinguishable. Cytochrome spectra also indicated that I. terricola may no longer be considered a teleomorph of C. diversa.