Single and binary effects of dye Basic Violet 3 and heavy metals. 'namely', Pb(II) and Cd(II), were investigated for their role in dye and heavy metal bioaccumulation by Candida tropicalis that was grown in a sugarcane bagasse extract medium containing 8 g/L, 16 g/L or 24 g/L of sugar. The optimum pH was found to be 4.0 in the single system and 5.0 in the binary system. A central composite design was successfully used to analyse the experimental results. Four numerical correlations that were fitted to a second order quadratic equation were used to estimate optimum combinations predicted by response surface methodology. In the dye-Pb(II) binary system, C. tropicalis was capable of bioaccumulating 49.5% of the dye and 49.6% of the Pb(II), in comparison to 15.9% of the dye and 55.5% of the Cd(II) in the dye-Cd(II) binary system. In these two systems, the pollutants were dispersed at minimum working concentration levels. Competitive inhibition was observed in both the single and binary systems, which was suggested by an increase in the saturation constant, K-s, and a simultaneous decrease in the specific growth rate that was calculated from Lineweaver-Burk plots. Atomic force microscopy images demonstrated changes in yeast cell morphology by exposure to these contaminants in the dye-Pb(II) binary system grown in a bioaccumulation medium. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.