Establishment of the Steady State in Glucose-limited Chemostat Cultures of Klebsiella pneumoniae

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Abstract
To investigate the relationship between growth rate and concentration of the nutrient that limits growth, ''Klebsiella aerogenes'' NCTC 418 (K. pneumoniae) was grown in a glucose-limited chemostat. The actual time required to establish a steady-state glucose concentration exceeded that expected theoretically. Apparently, there is a long-term adaptation of the cells to nutrient limitation. As yet, it not clear whether this has a phenotypic or genetic origin. In the final steady state, the dependence of the growth rate on glucose concentration could be mathematically described equally well by a hyperbolic and by a logarithmic function.