Kinetics and mechanisms of amino-acid leakage in bacteria

Determine the kinetics and relative contributions of bacterial amino-acid leakage mechanisms (e.g., passive diffusion, active export) to extracellular amino-acid pools in cross-feeding communities.

Background

Cross-feeding via leaked amino acids is widespread, yet the specific leakage pathways and their rates are poorly characterized.

Quantifying leakage kinetics is necessary to couple ecological consumer-resource models with physiological proteome-allocation frameworks.