Microbial Growth under Limiting Conditions-Future Perspectives

Abstract

Microorganisms rule the functioning of our planet and each one of the individual macroscopic living creature. Nevertheless, microbial activity and growth status have always been challenging tasks to determine both in situ and in vivo. Microbial activity is generally related to growth, and the growth rate is a result of the availability of nutrients under adequate or adverse conditions faced by microbial cells in a changing environment. Most studies on microorganisms have been carried out under optimum or near-optimum growth conditions, but scarce information is available about microorganisms at slow-growing states (i.e., near-zero growth and maintenance metabolism). This study aims to better understand microorganisms under growth-limiting conditions. This is expected to provide new perspectives on the functions and relevance of the microbial world. This is because (i) microorganisms in nature frequently face conditions of severe growth limitation, (ii) microorganisms activate singular pathways (mostly genes remaining to be functionally annotated), resulting in a broad range of secondary metabolites, and (iii) the response of microorganisms to slow-growth conditions remains to be understood, including persistence strategies, gene expression, and cell differentiation both within clonal populations and due to the complexity of the environment.

The potential of Bacillus species isolated from Cinnamomum camphora for biofuel production

“…From a commercial perspective, the growth of microorganisms is a significant challenge in the industrial production of valuable chemicals [ 26 ]. Therefore, the growth curve for each bacterial isolate was determined in each culture medium.…”

Indigenous Bacteria Diversity of Fermetodege Based on Molecular Analysis The Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)

“…As the variety of thermophilic species grows, the nutrient content in the fermented material begins to become depleted so that most of the various bacterial species die, resulting in a decrease in diversity in the thermophilic phase II. A decreasing number of species means a decrease in overall metabolic activity which results in reducing heat release into the system, so that the system temperature will move to a moderate temperature [23][24].…”

Spatiotemporal dynamics of cyanobacteriumDolichospermum lemmermanniipopulations in a bloom-prone region of Lake Superior

“…Using gRodon (Weissman et al, 2021), which estimates the growth rate of microorganisms based on their genome, we predict the doubling time of D. lemmermannii under optimal, nutrient-replete conditions is around 19-20 hours. There are caveats to using this methodology (Weissman et al, 2021), and it is well-known that growth estimates are difficult for slow-growing organisms (Gonzalez and Aranda, 2023). That said, to form a colony of D. lemmermannii with 500 cells from an akinete, would take ∼7 days under optimal conditions.…”