- Diagram and define the four phases of a bacterial growth curve. Describe in detail what is happening to cells at each phase.
The bacterial population growth studies required the inoculation of the viable cells into the sterile broth and the incubation of the culture at the optimum temperature and pH . Under these conditions, the cells will reproduce rapidly by a dynamics of the microbial growth , which can be charted by means of the population growth curve which is plotted by observing the increase in the cell number at various times of inoculation.
The stages of the growth curve are :
Lag phase
During this stage , the cells are adjusting to the new environment. The metabolism is accelerated resulting in the rapid biosynthesis of the cellular macromolecules primarily enzymes , which are essentially required in the preparation of the next stage . Here the cells increase in size but no division occurs.
Log phase
Under the optimal nutritional and physiological conditions,bthe cells reproduce at uniform and a rapid rate. Thus there is an exponential increase in the population which doubles regularly untill a maximum number of the cells are reached. The length of the log phase depends on the organism and the composition of the media.
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