ABSTRACT
Detailed analyses of the bacterial and yeast cell cycles are now possible with flow cytometry. We will focus here on fundamental aspects of cell cycle analysis of the bacterium Escherichia coli, and demonstrate how DNA and cell size distributions may be used to calculate key parameters of the bacterial cell cycle. Also when flow cytometry is merely used to monitor the state of a microbial culture, knowledge of basic DNA replication and cell division patterns is useful, since the DNA and size distributions are very sensitive to changes in the growth conditions. [For reviews on basic cell cycle analysis and advances of flow cytometry in applied microbiology the reader is referred to Ref. 1 and 2, respectively].
