The purpose of this work was to examine physiological differences between the yeast Geotrichum candidum and the mould Penicillium camembertii, organisms involved in the industrial process of cheese ripening. Three groups of amino acids had previously been characterized, based on their carbon assimilation and dissimilation by the two fungal species. For both of them, a diauxic growth phase had been shown for a group of amino acids, which however had not been examined in light of physiological differences between the two microorganisms. In this work, the higher level of enzymatic activities of P. camembertii if compared to G. candidum was confirmed since a continuous and sequential use of both carbon substrates, glucose and arginine, was recorded during P. camembertii culture; while after glucose depletion, a clear stationary phase was recorded before the assimilation of the considered amino acid as both carbon and nitrogen sources by G. candidum. This behaviour was confirmed for the three amino acids tested, i.e., arginine, proline and glutamic acid. Contrarily, during the two growth phases, on glucose and the test amino acid, respectively, higher growth rates were recorded for G. candidum compared to P. camembertii, showing higher substrate utilisation efficiency by G. candidum. Improving the knowledge regarding the metabolization of amino acids might be helpful in designing strategies aiming at improving processes such as cheese ripening. The work should be followed up by similar works using small peptides.
Geotrichum candidum; Penicillium camembertii; Diauxic growth; Amino acids; Carbon substrates; Nitrogen substrates
