Title: Kinetic study of growth throughout the lag phase and the exponential phase of Escherichia coli
Abstract: An equation describing bacterial growth throughout lag and exponential phases was derived based on the assumption that parent cells inoculated into a fresh medium initiate cell growth according to the first order reaction kinetics (the FOR model) and that all cells once cell growth is initiated continue cell growth at a constant rate. The length of a lag time was given by three parameters: the retardation time, tr, the rate of growth initiation of parent cells, λ, and the specific growth rate, μ. Escherichia coli inoculated into a fresh medium was shown to grow in accordance with theoretical prediction. When non-growing cells taken from different-aged cultures were used as inocula, changes in the length of the lag time depended solely on the λ value.