Growth Conditions

We grew our wild type Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 under autotrophic conditions in our custom incubator. Approximately 150mL of culture was grown in 250mL Erlenmeyer flasks at 300 C. Our culture contained BG-11 and thiosulfate. Cultures were exposed to constant light and gently shaken.

Growth Rates

In order to determine the growth rate of our wild type Synechocystis, we took measurements of the OD730 of our culture over a period of eleven days. We used a UV/Vis Spectrophotometer and blanked our culture against 1x BG-11. The OD730 was plotted against number of days the culture had been growing for. From the growth curve we obtained, the exponential portion was selected and fitted to a curve.

The calculations done to derive the growth rate are shown below, where μ is the growth rate and X is the biomass.

From the growth rate, we were also able to calculate the doubling time of our Synechocystis.