Fluorescence study of lectinlike receptors involved in the flocculation of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Flocculation of some yeasts involves lectinlike receptors with two different patterns of inhibition by sugars: mannose sensitive (MS) and glucose-mannose sensitive (GMS). The visualization and quantification of these receptors were performed using neoglycoproteins fluorescent probes. Fluorescence microscopy showed a homogeneous distribution of surface receptors for the strain belonging to the MS group and a polar distribution for cells belonging to the GMS group. Affinity constants, estimated by fluorimetry, were shown to have different values (MS, 2.6 +/- 0.7 x 10(5) M-1; GMS, 2 +/- 1 x 10(6) M-1), but the number of sites was estimated to be smaller for strain NCYC 1195 which belongs to the GMS group than for strain NCYC 869 from the MS group (MS, 2.4 +/- 0.2 x 10(7) sites/cell; GMS, 3.9 +/- 0.8 x 10(6) sites/cell).