Thread: Different lifespans of yeast?

Yeast can be cultured under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. If it is anaerobic it should produce less radicals (ROS). If radicals indeed adversely influence ageing, lifespan should be greater than in presence of oxygen. Does anybody know whether somebody did such an experiment? And what was the result?
Thanks in advance for your replies.

Here's a paper from PNAS

They found a 35% reduction in lifespan in their yeast strain when grown in anaerobic conditions.

Ok. Thank you very much! That was exactly what I looked for.
Obviously an active respiration is very important for a long lifespan. And the detrimental effects of ROS under aerobic conditions can be neglected, as there are enough antioxidant enzymes to destroy ROS. Besides ROS-formation seems important for cellular signalling, as without ROS under anaerobic conditions the lifespan decreases.

Originally Posted by neird

Ok. Thank you very much! That was exactly what I looked for.
Obviously an active respiration is very important for a long lifespan. And the detrimental effects of ROS under aerobic conditions can be neglected, as there are enough antioxidant enzymes to destroy ROS. Besides ROS-formation seems important for cellular signalling, as without ROS under anaerobic conditions the lifespan decreases.

Whoa now, hold on you can't make any such conclusions from this information.

This study suggests a few things. First of all, caloric restriction under aerobic conditions does increase lifespan, and increased antioxidants under aerobic conditions increases lifespan. This suggests that ROS do cause a reduction in lifespan.

It also suggests that under anaerobic conditions yeast lifespan is reduced (which probably has more to do with the inefficiency of anaerobic respiration) and that antioxidants have no effect on increasing lifespan under anaerobic conditions. Moreover, caloric restriction under anaerobic conditions lowers lifespan.

The authors opinion is that the increased lifespan caused by calorie restriction under aerobic conditions is mostly an effect of increased metabolic efficiency. However, they still acknowledge that under aerobic conditions free radicals do reduce lifespan in yeast.

I'd also caution against extrapolating too much to humans, since humans never live under predominantly anaerobic conditions. Calorie restriction works in mice, as does increased antioxidants, to increase lifespan.