Electric Impedance of Suspensions of Yeast Cells

Abstract

THE electric impedance of suspensions of yeast cells, suspended in solutions of electrolytes, has been measured as a resistance, R, and a parallel capacitance, C, with a Wheatstone bridge. In Fig. 1 are shown C and R, as functions of frequency, for a 63 per cent suspension of yeast cells in a 0.1 per cent sodium chloride solution. The form of the curve for C is interesting, particularly when it is compared with the curve usually obtained for tissues¹, for it seems that it provides evidence regarding characteristics of the cell surface which may be obscured in the case of tissues by reason of their lack of homogeneity. For suspensions of red blood corpuscles, curves¹ have been obtained similar to those for yeast, although the increase of C at low frequencies is of much smaller magnitude.