Work

Phenotypic Signatures Arising from Unbalanced Bacterial Growth

Year: 2014

Type: article

Abstract: Fluctuations in the growth rate of a bacterial culture during unbalanced growth are generally considered undesirable in quantitative studies of bacterial physiology. Under well-controlled experimental conditions, however, these fluctuations are not random but instead reflect the interplay between intra-cellular networks underlying bacterial growth and the growth environment. Therefore, these fluctuations could be considered quantitative phenotypes of the bacteria under a specific growth condition. Here, we present a method to identify "phenotypic signatures" by time-frequency analysis of unbalanced growth curves measured with high temporal resolution. The signatures are then applied to differentiate amongst different bacterial strains or the same strain under different growth conditions, and to identify the essential architecture of the gene network underlying the observed growth dynamics. Our method has implications for both basic understanding of bacterial physiology and for the classification of bacterial strains.

Source: PLoS Computational Biology

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003751

Authors: Cheemeng Tan, Robert Phillip Smith, Ming-Chi Tsai, Russell Schwartz, Lingchong You

Institutions: Carnegie Mellon University, University of California, Davis, Duke University, Nova Southeastern University

Language: English

Topic: Gene Regulatory Network Analysis

Subfield: Molecular Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,043