Cellular Growth Arrest and Persistence from Enzyme Saturation
Fig 5
A framework for population growth dynamics in the presence of metabolic risk.
(A). Growth conditions, gene expression, replication, and regulatory factors determine timescales for switching between different types of growth. On a characteristic timescale τ1, cells stochastically switch from balanced growth (g) to a condition of rapidly changing growth rate (ĝ) and escape on a timescale of τ-1. Growth arrest arises from the growth shift state on a timescale of τ2. Escape from growth arrest permits cells to resume growth on a timescale of τ-2, or die on a timescale of τ3. (B) In the limit of large τ1 or small τ-1, populations have classical balanced growth. (C) In the limit of small τ1 and τ2 with large τ-1 and τ-2, the metastable population model holds.