If a bacterial cell culture contains 2 cells at time zero, 8 cells one hour later, 32 cells after 2 hours, and 128 cells after 4 hours, then which of the following describes the growth of this culture?
A) g = 0.5 h, v = 5 h^-1
B) g = 0.5 h, v = 2 h^-1
C) g = 2 h, v = 0.5 h^-1
D) g = 1 h, v = 1^-1

B

Explanation:

This cell culture is in exponential growth, as every 30 minutes the cell population is doubling. at regular intervals.

The generation time (g) describes is the time interval required for the cells to divide.

generation time (g) = time (in hours)/ number of generations

The total time in hours is 4. And the number of generations is the number of population doublings it takes to get to 128, which is 8 (0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128)

g = 4/8

g = 0.5

Therefore, the answer is either A or B.

v = the specific growth rate of bacteria, with the units h⁻¹. This corresponds to the number of population doublings per hour. The data shows that the population doubles 2x every hour. Therefore, the answer is B.