Impact of Low-Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound on Transcript and Metabolite Abundance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The interactions of ultrasound with biological materials are exploited for diagnostic, interventional, and therapeutic applications in humans and can improve productivity in industrial-scale generation of organic molecules such as biofuels, vaccines, and antibodies. Accordingly, there is great interest in better understanding the biological effects of ultrasound. We studied the impact of low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) on RNA expression and metabolism of S. cerevisiae. Although the transcript expression signature of LIPUS-treated cells does not differ significantly from that of untreated cells after 5 days, metabolomic profiling by chemical-isotopic-labeling-liquid-chromatography-mass-spectrometry suggests that LIPUS has an impact on the pathways of pyrimidine, proline, alanine, aspartate, glutamate, and arginine metabolism. Therefore, LIPUS triggers metabolic effects beyond reprogramming of the core pathways of carbon metabolism. Further characterization of metabolism will likely be important for elucidation of the biological effects of LIPUS.