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.