Predictive modeling of microorganisms: LAG and LIP in monotonic growth

The variety of models that are currently being used in “Predictive Microbiology” or “Microbial Ecology” aiming at reproducing the growth curve of microorganisms motivates this study. It is widely agreed that no model can reproduce generically and consistently the “LAG Phase” of microorganism growth. To promote the objective of “predictive modeling”, we present here a model that was derived from first biological and physical principles, which is shown to reproduce qualitatively as well as quantitatively all typical features captured experimentally in microorganism growth. In particular, this paper focuses on capturing and controlling of the “LAG Phase” a typical phase in microorganisms growth, at the initial growth stages, as well as the inflection point on the “ln curve” of the cell concentration, i.e. a Logarithmic Inflection Point referred here as “LIP”. The proposed model also captures the Logistic Growth curve as a special case. Comparison of the solutions obtained from the proposed model with experimental data confirms its quantitative validity, as well as its ability to recover a wide range of qualitative features captured in experiments.