Global Constraint Principle for Microbial Growth Law

Abstract

Monod's law is a widely accepted phenomenology for bacterial growth. Since it has the same functional form as the Michaelis--Menten equation for enzyme kinetics, cell growth is often considered to be locally constrained by a single reaction. In contrast, this paper shows that a global constraint principle of resource allocation to metabolic processes can well describe the nature of cell growth. This concept is a generalization of Liebig's law, a growth law for higher organisms, and explains the dependence of microbial growth on the availability of multiple nutrients, in contrast to Monod's law.