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Updated: May 19, 2026

The Use of Chemostats in Microbial Systems Biology
Published on: October 14, 2013
The chemostat with lateral gene transfer
Patrick De Leenheer1, Jack Dockery, Tomas Gedeon
1Department of Mathematics, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8105, USA. deleenhe@math.ufl.edu
Abstract:
We investigate the standard chemostat model when lateral gene transfer is taken into account. We will show that when the different genotypes have growth rate functions that are sufficiently close to a common growth rate function, and when the yields of the genotypes are sufficiently close to a common value, then the population evolves to a globally stable steady state, at which all genotypes coexist. These results can explain why the antibiotic-resistant strains persist in the pathogen population.
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