Harmonic Response of Cellular Membrane Pumps to Low Frequency Electric Fields

Abstract

We report on harmonic generation by budding yeast cells in response to a sinusoidal electric field, which is seen to be minimal when the field amplitude is less than a threshold value. Surprisingly, sodium metavanadate, an inhibitor of $P$-type ATPases reportedly responsible for nonlinear response in yeast, reduces the threshold field amplitude, increasing harmonic generation at low amplitudes while reducing it at large amplitudes, whereas the addition of glucose dramatically increases the production of even harmonics. Finally, a simple model is proposed to interpret the observed behavior.