Thermodynamic conpensation in microbial thermal death. Studies with yeasts.

Sixty eight Arrhenius plots of thermal death in six mesophilic yeast species, tested at various concentrations of NaC1, lacked an isokinetic temperature. Nevertheless the deltaHnot equal to/deltaSnot equal to plot was apparently linear with a slope corresponding to 314degrees K. It was concluded the linear thermodynamic compensation of thermal death is non-existent in heterogeneous groups of yeasts and is unlikely to occur in hetero-geneous groups of other organisms and that deltaHnot equal to/deltaSnot equal to plots lack sensitivity for the detection of non-linearity over narrow temperature ranges.