Question

Starvation proteins are produced by a culture during which of the following segments of growth curve?

(a) Lag phase

(b) Log phase

(c) Stationary phase

(d) Death phase

The question was posed to me at a job interview.

My question is from Cell Growth Kinetics topic in chapter Homogenous Reactions of Bioprocess Engineering

Answer 1

The correct choice is (c) Stationary phase

To explain: When microbes lack the nutrients necessary for growth, they enter stationary phase. In cases when energy sources are still present in the environment, they must decide whether to continue to use their metabolic program to harvest the available energy. Here we characterized the metabolic response to a variety of types of nutrient starvation in Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis.