A mathematical model for examining growth and sporulation processes of Bacillus subtilis

Abstract

A mathematical model for the growth process of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis is described. The model is a highly structured one. The driving motivation for development of the model and explicit accounting of major interactions of metabolic networks in the model is related to our eventual goal that the model will be used in the analysis of complex biological patterns. Bacillus subtilis was chosen in our study due to the interesting sporulation process that these cells undergo in response to adverse environmental conditions including nutrient limitation. Sporulation process in B. subtilis represents a primordial prototype of cellular differentiation in higher cellular systems. Thus a model for the B. subtilis growth process should prove extremely useful for understanding questions of developmental biology. The model is capable of simulating the transition between the exponential and stationary phase of growth in a batch culture. Since during the transition period the growth process and the metabolism become decoupled and many transient processes are taking place, such predictions are a severe test for the validity of any model. A strategy to examine the leading hypothesis on B. subtills sporulation implementing GTP as a component which signals sporulation initiation is described.