The temperature profile of growth, death and yield of the starch-converting yeast Lipomyces kononenkoae.

A strain of Lipomyces kononenkoae earlier proposed for industrial starch bioconversion was found to have a dissociative temperature profile. The Arrhenius plot of sustained exponential growth displayed a single branch between the optimum (32-33 degrees C) and the maximum (about 35 degrees C) temperature for growth while the extrapolated Arrhenius plots of growth and thermal death intersected at a biologically non-significant value. The yield of L. kononenkoae on glucose did not decrease at supraoptimal temperatures while the associative yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae suffered yield decreases above the optimum temperature for growth with increasing temperature.