[The nature of stability of yeast cells to drying]

The residual water and dry matter condition in the lyophilized biomass of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was studied by NMR-relaxation technique. It was shown that the slow component of the transverse magnetization NMR signal spectrum corresponding to the so-called "isolated mobile water" was caused in fact by the interaction of the disaccharide trehalose with the cell biopolymers. The big amount of hydrogen bonds formed by trehalose and their three-dimensional orientation closed to the orientation in water clusters assure the valuable functioning of this disaccharide during the process of removing water out of cells. When stationary phase yeast biomass containing a lot of trehalose was dried the cell organelles condition remained practically unchanged what led to the high resistance of such cells to dehydration.