Auxotrophic mutants may have physiological alterations and sensitivities which are not generally recognized. Such features are shown here by observations that final cell densities attained by several leucine-auxotrophic Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains depend differently on the initial leucine concentration in the medium. Furthermore, complementing such auxotrophic strains with the plasmid-based LEU2 selection marker resulted in different final cell densities than chromosomal expression of LEU2 in the otherwise isogenic, prototrophic strains. These results warn that auxotrophic host-related physiological influences overlay any metabolic effect of a cloned gene expressed in such a host, clearly complicating interpretation of the effect of that gene＇s product in scientific or metabolic engineering research.