Bacterial growth laws and their applications
Open accessAbstract
Quantitative empirical relationships between cell composition and growth rate played an important role in the early days of microbiology. Gradually, the focus of the field began to shift from growth physiology to the ever more elaborate molecular mechanisms of regulation employed by the organisms. Advances in systems biology and biotechnology have renewed interest in the physiology of the cell as a whole. Furthermore, gene expression is known to be intimately coupled to the growth state of the cell. Here, we review recent efforts in characterizing such couplings, particularly the quantitative phenomenological approaches exploiting bacterial 'growth laws.' These approaches point toward underlying design principles that can guide the predictive manipulation of cell behavior in the absence of molecular details.
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The total proteome is partitioned into a growth rate-independent fraction and growth rate-dependent fractions for ribosomal/translational proteins and metabolic proteins, with the sum of ribosomal and metabolic protein mass fractions constant.
“In the simplest case, the total proteome is partitioned into a growth rate-independent fraction that may include negatively autoregulated housekeeping genes (Klumpp et al, 2009), and growth rate-dependent fractions, one for ribosomal and other translational proteins, and one for metabolic proteins, including transporters and catabolic and anabolic enzymes (Scott et al, 2010; Scott & Hwa, 2011).”
From Emergence of robust growth laws from optimal regulation of ribosome synthesis (2014) · cites this paper as Scott & Hwa, 2011
Phenomenological studies have the advantage that strong predictive models can be built in the absence of information about molecular details.
“Phenomenological studies of bacterial growth and growth rate regulation have been used throughout the intervening decades to great success (for a review, see Scott & Hwa, 2011), and one of their chief advantages is that strong predictive models can be built in the absence of information about molecular details.”
From Emergence of robust growth laws from optimal regulation of ribosome synthesis (2014) · cites this paper as Scott & Hwa, 2011
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- Authors
- Scott, M., & Hwa, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Scott, Matthew
- Venue
- Current Opinion in Biotechnology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-08
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 559-565
- ISSN
- 0958-1669 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3152618
- OpenAlex
- W2042493870
- Cited by
- 309
- References
- 70
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 28 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 7
- FWCI
- 1.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Current Opinion in Biotechnology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01GM077298, R01GM095903)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Gene Regulatory Network Analysis
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Microbial Metabolic Engineering and Bioproduction
- Keywords
- cell growth rate, cell composition, gene expression regulation, growth state, phenomenological model, systems biology, synthetic biology
- MeSH terms
- Bacteria, Biotechnology, Escherichia coli, Kinetics, Models, Biological, Gene Expression
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