New approach to the interpretation of vibrational spectra of microbial cells

: IR-technique was applied to study baker's yeast cell and its envelope fragments. The quantitative evaluation of spectra was made using the polysaccharide band at 1070 cm-1 as the bench one. The comparison of the spectra of the whole cells and of the envelope fragments suggested that the spectrum of the yeast cell was governed by the composition of its envelope only. ATR-spectra of the whole cells and of envelope debris were obtained and the comparison of these with the "absorption" ones made it possible to conclude that the yeast cells vibration spectrum was for the most part the reflection spectrum governed by the composition of the cell envelope rather than the absorption one.