Explain the phenomenon known as diauxic growth. Hypothesize why this type of regulation might be important for survival of a microbe in a community as well as a situation where lacking it might be advantageous

What will be an ideal response?


Answer: As an example, Escherichia coli exposed to two highly labile substrates such as glucose and lactose will preferentially use the most labile glucose substrate before lactose. Diauxie therefore explains how cells control gene expression, often as operons and regulons, to achieve the fastest growth rate. If a cell were to not have this mechanism, they might be outcompeted in the environment by other quicker growing and replicating cells. Lacking a global catabolite regulation system might be advantageous for cells occurring in a heterogenous mixture where specializing on an individual substrate provides poor growth yields.

Biology & Microbiology

You might also like to view...

Which is the correct order of absorption for water entering the root system?

a. epidermis endodermis cortex vascular cylinder b. endodermis epidermis vascular cylinder cortex c. epidermis endodermis vascular cylinder cortex d. epidermis cortex endodermis vascular cylinder

Biology & Microbiology

Which of the following is required for initiation of eukaryotic translation?

A) Shine-Dalgarno sequence B) 5' cap C) release factors D) N-formylmethionine E) introns

Biology & Microbiology

Internationally, the use of ricin as a weapon is banned in most countries according to the ____

a. Madrid protocol b. Paris protocol c. Kyoto protocol d. Geneva protocol e. Vienna protocol

Biology & Microbiology

Which of the following is a unique characteristic of bryophytes not seen in the other plant groups?

A) They exhibit alternation of generations. B) They produce flowers. C) The gametophyte is larger than the sporophyte. D) They produce diploid spores.

Biology & Microbiology