Rising to the Occasion: How Yeast Growth Rates Vary With Sucrose Concentration

Our experiment set out to determine whether sucrose concentration in yeast growth medium positively affects the cellular growth rate of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. To test this, we made solutions containing deionized water, sodium phosphate, yeast, and differing amounts of sucrose, after which we counted yeast cells from samples taken at 0, 15, and 30 minutes. Yeast growth is dependent on sugar, and sucrose provides more fuel for glycolysis per gram than simply glucose. We found that increased sucrose concentrations did indeed have a positive effect on S. cerevisiae cell growth.