A phytostat to mass culture higher plant cells in liquid medium is described. This apparatus allowed the culture in batch, turbidostat and chemostat of 20 liters of cells. Automatic control of cell suspension growth was based on culture turbidity. Changes with time of certain cell characteristics, particularly cell respiration and phospholipid content, indicated that the test time to harvest la...

Engineered biological circuits are often disturbed by a variety of environmental factors. In batch culture, where the majority of synthetic circuit characterization occurs, environmental conditions vary as the culture matures. Turbidostats are powerful characterization tools that provide static culture environments; however, they are often expensive, especially when purchased in custom configur...

This work reports on an instrument capable of supporting automated microscale continuous culture experiments. The instrument consists of a plastic-PDMS device capable of continuous flow without volume drift or evaporation. We apply direct computer controlled machining and chemical bonding fabrication for production of fluidic devices with a 1 mL working volume, high oxygen transfer rate (k(L)a≈...

Five control configurations for continuous bioreactors are analyzed using a simple model. A controller-independent measure, the partial disturbance gain, is used for evaluating their controllability with respect to disturbance rejection. The computation of the partial disturbance gain is generalized to the case with several uncontrolled outputs. At substrate-limited growth conditions, the conce...

For various experimental applications, microbial cultures at defined, constant densities are highly advantageous over simple batch cultures. Due to high costs, however, devices for continuous culture at freely defined densities still experience limited use. We have developed a small-scale turbidostat for research purposes, which is manufactured from inexpensive components and 3D printed parts. ...

Physiological aspects of salt-adaptation in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus 6311 growing in a continuous culture (turbidostat) were studied. The process of salt-adaptation was completed within 3 days, as expressed by the specific growth rate of cells grown in the presence of 0.2 and 0.4 molar NaCl. An increase in photosynthetic activity during the adaptation period leads to the accumulation of...