Microbial growth and metabolism: Modelling and calorimetric characterization

Abstract

Microbial growth can be qualitatively described with the empirical Gompertz function. This, however, has no specific physical meaning and gives no information about the underlying biochemical activity. When used to fit the isothermal calorimetric traces obtained from microbial cultures, it is inadequate. A more satisfactory description comes from a kinetic model that can reproduce the plate count data, the isothermal calorimetric trace and the change in the metabolite concentration. © 1995 IUPAC