Simple assay of trehalose in industrial yeast

Trehalose is an essential chemical marker to control a quality of the industrial yeast strains and to assess a tolerance of the yeasts products to different physical stresses. A high-performance liquid chromatography analysis with charged aerosol detection (HPLC-CAD) was developed for trehalose determination in industrial yeasts. The method offers a linearity in the range of 5.0-15 mM with linear regression coefficient R(2)=0.9995, a good reproducibility and relatively short analysis time (7 min). Trehalose can be detected at concentrations as low as 0.07 mM, and limit of precise quantification is 0.2 mM. The coefficient of variation (CV%) is 0.3%. The developed method is more sensitive compared with conventional chromatography procedure with UV absorbance detection. It was shown that the proposed method can be used in baker's industry to control a quality of the yeast products and to assess biotechnological significance of the yeast strains.