Interaction of storage carbohydrates and other cyclic fluxes with central metabolism: A quantitative approach by non-stationary ¹³C metabolic flux analysis

¹³C labeling experiments in aerobic glucose limited cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae at four different growth rates (0.054; 0.101, 0.207, 0.307 h^-1) are used for calculating fluxes that include intracellular cycles (e.g., storage carbohydrate cycles, exchange fluxes with amino acids), which are rearranged depending on the growth rate. At low growth rates the impact of the storage carbohydrate recycle is relatively more significant than at high growth rates due to a higher concentration of these materials in the cell (up to 560-fold) and higher fluxes relative to the glucose uptake rate (up to 16%). Experimental observations suggest that glucose can be exported to the extracellular space, and that its source is related to storage carbohydrates, most likely via the export and subsequent extracellular breakdown of trehalose. This hypothesis is strongly supported by ¹³C-labeling experimental data, measured extracellular trehalose, and the corresponding flux estimations.