Delayed luminescence as a tool for detecting oxidative stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Biophoton emission is a common life phenomenon, which is highly sensitive to the changes inside the biological system and the influence of the external environment. A lot of microscopic and equivocal information about the biological system and its weak response to the environment can be obtained through the detection and analysis of the biophoton emission. In this research, we studied the delayed luminescence (DL) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells treated with H2O2. The results showed that after H2O2 treatment the DL intensity of the yeast cells increased in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. The DL kinetics curves of yeast cells, treated with different concentration of H2O2 for 2 h or 3 mmol/l H2O2 for different time, well reflected the oxidative stress level of yeast cells. Furthermore, correlation analysis showed that there was a high positive correlation between DL and reactive oxygen species (ROS) under oxidative stress conditions. In conclusion, DL had the potential to be used as a tool to detect oxidative stress in yeast cells, and even to be developed as a new complementary medical method for health examination and disease diagnosis.