Dielectric estimation of the safety of Trichosporon cutaneum against poisonous chemicals

Abstract

Conditioning of cultures involves growing cells in the presence of increasing amounts of a toxic
chemical. In order to investigate how conditioning affects a culture’s ability to resist new challenges, the
resistance of Trichosporon cutaneum to various toxic chemicals, before and after conditioning to
growth on phenol, was investigated by measuring the capacitance of cell suspensions at 0.4 MHz
following a toxic challenge. The results show that cells grown on phenol are more resistant to the
influence of polar aromatic toxic chemicals such as phenol (log Pow = 1.48) and benzylalcohol (log Pow =
1.1), but less resistant against less polar non-aromatic compounds such as n-octanol (log Pow = 2.9). In
reverse, cells grown on glucose were found to be more resistant against n-octanol, but less so against
phenol and benzylalcohol. The results indicate that cells, adapted to be more resistant to one type of
substance, may become more susceptible to other compounds.