PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ram, Yoav
AU  - Dellus-Gur, Eynat
AU  - Bibi, Maayan
AU  - Obolski, Uri
AU  - Berman, Judith
AU  - Hadany, Lilach
TI  - Predicting microbial relative growth in a mixed culture from growth curve data
AID  - 10.1101/022640
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 022640
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/11/24/022640.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/11/24/022640.full
AB  - Estimates of microbial fitness from growth curves are inaccurate. Rather, competition experiments are necessary for accurate estimation. But competition experiments require unique markers and are difficult to perform with isolates derived from a common ancestor or non-model organisms. Here we describe a new approach for predicting relative growth of microbes in a mixed culture utilizing mono- and mixed culture growth curve data. We validated this approach using growth curve and competition experiments with E. coli. Our approach provides an effective way to predict growth in a mixed culture and infer relative fitness. Furthermore, by integrating several growth phases, it provides an ecological interpretation for microbial fitness.