Diauxic Behavior of Yeast in a Fed-Batch Reactor

​
initial conditions
maximum fraction of respiring biomass
0.3
run time minimum (h)
0
run time maximum (h)
60
intermediate enzyme control mol/
3
m
​
1
feed flow rate ​
3
m
/h
0.2
substrate feed concentration mol/
3
m
​
100
feed time (h)
35
plot
fed batch
Yeast exhibits diauxic behavior with respect to the glucose and ethanol in the medium as alternative substrates. When glucose levels are high, fermentation will occur instead of respirative oxidation, thereby reducing biomass yields. The constant
α
designates the fraction of respiring biomass and
(1-α)
, the fraction of fermenting biomass. The rates of the processes are controlled by three enzymes, designated
E
0
,
E
1
and
E
2
.

Details

The results give us the concentrations of glucose (Glu), ethanol (Eta) and biomass (
X
) during the fed-batch process. Enzyme activation for the transformation of ethanol to biomass has an initial concentration of starting enzyme
E
0
. This is converted to enzyme
E
2
, which catalyzes growth on ethanol through an intermediate enzyme
E
1
. Thus, the production rate of enzyme
E
1
is strongly inhibited by glucose,
R
4
=
K
4
X
E
0
K
S4
+
3
Glu
,
and the production rate of enzyme
E
2
controlling the conversion of biomass to ethanol depends on
E
1
,
R
5
=
K
5
X
E
1
.
Glucose inhibits the formation of enzyme
E
1
, and
K
S4
controls the level of this enzyme. You can experiment with the influence of this constant by modifying the values. The initial value of
E
0
is critical since the concentration of this enzyme decreases throughout the fermentation. You can change the initial value to see its influence. The Demonstration has a control to feed the reactor and thereby maintain the biomass in a respiring condition.

References

[1] I. J. Dunn, E. Heinzle, J. Ingham and J. E. Přenosil, Biological Reaction Engineering: Dynamic Modelling Fundamentals with Simulation Examples, 2nd ed., Weinheim: Wiley-VCH, 2003.

External Links

Diauxic Growth of Bacteria on Two Substrates
Fed Batch Fermentation and Quasi Steady State

Permanent Citation

R. Ricardo Sánchez
​
​"Diauxic Behavior of Yeast in a Fed-Batch Reactor"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/DiauxicBehaviorOfYeastInAFedBatchReactor/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: June 22, 2021