PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Pacciani-Mori, Leonardo
AU  - Giometto, Andrea
AU  - Suweis, Samir
AU  - Maritan, Amos
TI  - Proteome allocation influences population dynamics in microbial communities
AID  - 10.1101/2020.01.27.921478
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.01.27.921478
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/01/28/2020.01.27.921478.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/01/28/2020.01.27.921478.full
AB  - Microbial communities are complex systems, and the fundamental mechanisms that control their dynamics and composition are still largely unknown. Here we show that such systems have a previously unexplored level of complexity: their microscopic details related to gene expression influence their macroscopic properties such as the population dynamics. We provide an experimental proof of concept showing that proteome allocation dramatically affects the outcome of competition assays between strains of Escherichia coli. We also provide an essential model that predicts our findings.