Predicting Cellular Growth from Gene Expression Signatures
Figure 2
In the chemostat, cells are grown in liquid media [14]. A tank contains a large supply of nutrient containing high concentrations of all growth factors, but a limited concentration (S0) of the controlling growth factor. The nutrient flows continuously into a growth tube of limited capacity, where the culture grows. The dynamic behavior of the density of the culture (X) and of the concentration of the controlling nutrient (S) in the growth tube is summarized with a system of Michaelis-Menten differential equations. The desired growth rate is attained by manually limiting the concentration of the controlling growth factor in the nutrient provided to the cells.