A growth-rate composition formula for the growth of E. coli on co-utilized carbon substrates

When bacteria are cultured in medium with multiple carbon substrates, they frequently consume these substrates simultaneously. Building on recent advances in the understanding of metabolic coordination exhibited by Escherichia coli cells through cAMP-Crp signaling, we show that this signaling system responds to the total carbon-uptake flux when substrates are co-utilized and derive a mathematical formula that accurately predicts the resulting growth rate, based only on the growth rates on individual substrates.