General quantitative relations linking cell growth and the cell cycle in Escherichia coli

Growth laws emerging from studies of cell populations provide essential constraints on the global mechanisms that coordinate cell growth1–3. The foundation of bacterial cell cycle studies relies on two interconnected dogmas that were proposed more than 50 years ago—the Schaechter–Maaloe–Kjeldgaard growth law that relates cell mass to growth rate1 and Donachie’s hypothesis of a growth-rate-independent initiation mass4. These dogmas spurred many efforts to understand their molecular bases and physiological consequences5–14. Although they are generally accepted in the fast-growth regime, that is, for doubling times below 1 h, extension of these dogmas to the slow-growth regime has not been consistently achieved. Here, through a quantitative physiological study of Escherichia coli cell cycles over an extensive range of growth rates, we report that neither dogma holds in either the slow- or fast-growth regime. In their stead, linear relations between the cell mass and the rate of chromosome replication–segregation were found across the range of growth rates. These relations led us to propose an integral-threshold model in which the cell cycle is controlled by a licensing process, the rate of which is related in a simple way to chromosomal dynamics. These results provide a quantitative basis for predictive understanding of cell growth–cell cycle relationships. A model using data from culturing Escherichia coli in 32 different growth media sheds light on the relationship between bacterial cell growth and the cell cycle.