@article{jaem20221014,
author={Schiraldi, Alberto},
title={The Origin of the Time Scale: A Crucial Issue for Predictive Microbiology},
journal={Journal of Applied & Environmental Microbiology},
volume={10},
number={1},
pages={35--42},
year={2022},
url={http://pubs.sciepub.com/jaem/10/1/4},
issn={2373-6712},
abstract={The collective behavior of microbial cells in a batch culture is the result of interactions among individuals and effects of the surrounding medium, which changes during the growth progress. A semi empirical model skips biological and physiological peculiarities of the microorganisms and focuses on the observed sigmoid shape of the growth curve that is a common feature of batch cultures of pro- and eukaryotic microorganisms. The model replaces the observed growth trend with the behavior of an ideal batch culture that undergoes an unperturbed duplication process. It leads one to recognize that: &#8226; the origin of the time scale for the microbes, &#952;, differs from that of the observer, <i>t</i>; &#8226; the absolute reference state for any batch culture is log (<i>N</i>) = 0 (no matter the log base) for &#952; = 0; &#8226; the cell duplication occurs after an active latency gap, &#952;<SUB>0</SUB>, that decreases with increasing inoculum population, log<SUB>2</SUB>(<i>N</i><SUB>0</SUB>) and increasing temperature; &#8226; &#952;<SUB>0</SUB> substantially differs from the lag phase, &#955;, considered by most authors; &#8226; the use of reduced variables allows gathering different growth curves in a single master plot; &#8226; the model applies to batch cultures which undergo change of the environmental conditions and predicts the width of the intermediate latency gap just after the change; &#8226; the expression for the decay trend of the microbial population allows definition of a parameter suitable to rank the effects of bactericidal drugs. The model justifies the demand of more restricted safety limits of microbial loads.},
doi={10.12691/jaem-10-1-4}
publisher={Science and Education Publishing}
}