Chemostat

A chemostat (from chemical environment is static) is a bioreactor to which fresh medium is continuously added, while culture liquid containing left over nutrients, metabolic end products and microorganisms are continuously removed at the same rate to keep the culture volume constant. By changing the rate with which medium is added to the bioreactor the specific growth rate of the microorganism can be easily controlled within limits.

One of the most important features of chemostats is that microorganisms can be grown in a physiological steady state under constant environmental conditions. In this steady state, growth occurs at a constant specific growth rate and all culture parameters remain constant (culture volume, dissolved oxygen concentration, nutrient and product concentrations, pH, cell density, etc.). In addition, environmental conditions can be controlled by the experimenter. Microorganisms growing in chemostats usually reach a steady state because of a negative feedback between growth rate and nutrient consumption: if a low number of cells are present in the bioreactor, the cells can grow at growth rates higher than the dilution rate as they consume little nutrient so growth is less limited by the addition of limiting nutrient with the inflowing fresh medium. The limiting nutrient is a nutrient essential for growth, present in the medium at a limiting concentration (all other nutrients are usually supplied in surplus). However, the higher the number of cells becomes, the more nutrient is consumed, lowering the concentration of the limiting nutrient. In turn, this will reduce the specific growth rate of the cells which will lead to a decline in the number of cells as they keep being removed from the system with the outflow. This results in a steady state. Due to the self-regulation, the steady state is stable. This enables the experimenter to control the specific growth rate of the microorganisms by changing the speed of the pump feeding fresh medium into the vessel.

Another important feature of chemostats and other continuous culture systems is that they are well-mixed so that environmental conditions are homogenous or uniform and microorganisms are randomly dispersed and encounter each other randomly. Therefore, competition and other interactions in the chemostat are global, in contrast to biofilms.

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