A new mathematical approach predicts individual cell growth behavior usingbacterial population information

A theoretical methodology has been developed for studying the growth kineti cs of bacterial cells. It utilizes the steady-state cell length distributio n in a bacterial population to predict the dependency of growth and divisio n rates on cell length and age. The mathematical model has been applied to the analysis of two bacterial populations, a wild-type strain of Bacillus s ubtilis, and a minicell-producing strain that carries the divIVB1 mutation. The results show that our model describes the wild-type population very we ll and that the assumptions typically used in traditional methods are unrea listic. In the case of the minicell-producing mutant we find evidence that the rate of cell division must be a function not only of cell size but also of cell age. (C) 2000 Academic Press.