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Title: Continuous cultivation of fission yeast: analysis of single-cell protein synthesis kinetics

Journal Article · · Biotechnol. Bioeng.; (United States)

A fundamental problem in microbial reactor analysis is identification of the relation between environment and individual cell metabolic activity. Population balance equations provide a link between experimental measurements of composition frequency functions in microbial populations on the one hand and macromolecule synthesis kinetics and cell division control parameters for single cells on the other. Flow microfluorometry measurements of frequency functions for single-cell protein content in Schizosaccharomyces pombe in balanced exponential growth were analyzed by 2 different methods. One approach utilizes the integrated form of the population balance equation known as the Collins-Richmond equation, and the other method involves optimization of parameters in assumed kinetic and cell division functional forms to fit measured frequency functions with corresponding model solutions. Both data interpretation techniques indicate that rates of protein synthesis increase most in low-protein-content cells as the population specific growth rate increases, leading to parabolic single-cell protein synthesis kinetics at large specific growth rates. Utilization of frequency function data for an asynchronous population is in this case a far more sensitive method for determination of single-cell kinetics than is monitoring the metabolic dynamics of a single cell or, equivalently, synchronous culture analyses.

Research Organization:
Dept. Chemical Engineering, Univ. Houston, Houston, TX 77004 USA
OSTI ID:
5342428
Journal Information:
Biotechnol. Bioeng.; (United States), Vol. 23:10
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English