Chapter 13
Oscillations in Yeast Glycolysis
Lars Folke Olsen and Anita Lunding
Abstract Oscillations in yeast glycolysis have been known for more than six
decades. In spite of intensive experimental and model studies there are still gaps
in our understanding of these glycolytic oscillations, e.g. the mechanisms by which
they arise, why they have been preserved throughout evolution, and what their potential functions in the cell could be. In the current paper new experimental observations will be presented showing that many variables, that were hitherto considered
unrelated to glycolysis, oscillate synchronously with glycolytic intermediates. Furthermore, a strong coupling between glycolysis and the polarisation of intracellular
water is presented, suggesting that water has a strong influence on metabolism. This
challenges our current understanding of the mechanism behind the glycolytic oscillations. Finally, it is proposed that the function of metabolic oscillations is to maintain
the cell in a state of constant low entropy.
13.1 Introduction
Glycolysis is the conversion of glucose to smaller substances such as lactic acid or
ethanol in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The main function of glycolysis is
to provide the cell with ATP when respiration is inhibited or absent. In dense suspensions of starved non-growing cells of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae temporal
oscillations in glycolysis can be observed [58]. These oscillations were discovered
more than 60 years ago by Duysens [20]. The oscillations manifest themselves as
oscillations in not only concentrations of metabolites in the glycolytic pathway (e.g.
hexose phosphates), the redox active coenzyme NADH and adenylates (e.g. ATP)
[59], but also in many other extensive (scale linearly with system size) and intensive
(independent on system size) thermodynamic variables [2, 19, 46, 47, 63–66], all
with the same frequency. In intact yeast cells the frequency of glycolytic oscillations
L. F. Olsen (B) · A. Lunding
PhyLife, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark,
Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark
e-mail: lfo@bmb.sdu.dk
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
A. Stefanovska and P. V. E. McClintock (eds.), Physics of Biological
Oscillators, Understanding Complex Systems,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59805-1_13
211
Oscillations in Yeast Glycolysis
Lars Folke Olsen and Anita Lunding
Abstract Oscillations in yeast glycolysis have been known for more than six
decades. In spite of intensive experimental and model studies there are still gaps
in our understanding of these glycolytic oscillations, e.g. the mechanisms by which
they arise, why they have been preserved throughout evolution, and what their potential functions in the cell could be. In the current paper new experimental observations will be presented showing that many variables, that were hitherto considered
unrelated to glycolysis, oscillate synchronously with glycolytic intermediates. Furthermore, a strong coupling between glycolysis and the polarisation of intracellular
water is presented, suggesting that water has a strong influence on metabolism. This
challenges our current understanding of the mechanism behind the glycolytic oscillations. Finally, it is proposed that the function of metabolic oscillations is to maintain
the cell in a state of constant low entropy.
13.1 Introduction
Glycolysis is the conversion of glucose to smaller substances such as lactic acid or
ethanol in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. The main function of glycolysis is
to provide the cell with ATP when respiration is inhibited or absent. In dense suspensions of starved non-growing cells of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae temporal
oscillations in glycolysis can be observed [58]. These oscillations were discovered
more than 60 years ago by Duysens [20]. The oscillations manifest themselves as
oscillations in not only concentrations of metabolites in the glycolytic pathway (e.g.
hexose phosphates), the redox active coenzyme NADH and adenylates (e.g. ATP)
[59], but also in many other extensive (scale linearly with system size) and intensive
(independent on system size) thermodynamic variables [2, 19, 46, 47, 63–66], all
with the same frequency. In intact yeast cells the frequency of glycolytic oscillations
L. F. Olsen (B) · A. Lunding
PhyLife, Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark,
Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark
e-mail: lfo@bmb.sdu.dk
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
A. Stefanovska and P. V. E. McClintock (eds.), Physics of Biological
Oscillators, Understanding Complex Systems,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59805-1_13
211