Modelling and Simulation of Budding Yeast Cultures

The correct description of cell cultures is vital for the understanding of underlying processes and optimisation of production processes. The brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a commonly used and well explored organism for the production of amino acids, antibiotics, recombinant proteins, and others. In this paper, an existing single cell model of the cell cycle of S. cerevisiae is extended in order to correctly describe mass, age, and cell cycle distributions of a cell culture. For this, a model of the aging process of the cell has been integrated into the cell cycle model. The model can be used to gain insight into the distribution of mutant populations. Also, it can be regarded as a first step for the development of optimisation strategies for production processes where the production and secretion rates of products vary over the cell cycle.