La crescita batterica. III: La legge di crescita del singolo batterio

Ageno, Mario

Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei. Rendiconti della Classe di scienze fisiche, matematiche e naturali, Série 8, Tome 83 (1989) no. 1, pp. 335-341

Résumé

Examining how a bacterial cell provides oneself with glucose from the medium and how the components needed to extend the bacterial envelop are synthesized, one can write down two very simple simultaneous linear differential equations of the first order, whose solution gives the laws of growth of the biological mass and of the surface of the cell. Both of the laws of growth are exponential only if the biological mass per unit surface initially assumes a given equilibrium value. Otherwise, a transient decreasing exponential term is also present, with half life equal to the doubling time of the increasing principal term. The possibility of an experimental check of such a provision of the theory is discussed.