Table 1.

Fermentation characteristics of the wild type E. coli and its phoB and phoR mutants in the aerobic chemostat culture under different phosphate concentrations at the dilution rate of 0.2 h^-1 at pH 7.0.

Fermentation Parameters		P-rich (100%) condition	P-lower (55%) condition	P-limited (20%) condition	P-limited (15%) condition	P-limited (12.5%) condition	P-limited (10%) condition	P-limited (5%) condition	P-limited (1%) condition
Biomass concentration (g/l)	Wild	3.86 ± 0.03	3.68 ± 0.05	3.47 ± 0.05	3.08 ± 0.02	2.78 ± 0.03	1.69 ± 0.03	-	-
	ΔphoB	3.44 ± 0.04	3.560 ± 0.011	-	-	-	3.64 ± 0.01	3.24 ± 0.02	0.050 ± 0.001
	ΔphoR	-	-	-	-	-	3.710 ± 0.112	-	-
Glucose concentration (g/l)	Wild	0.660 ± 0.004	0.760 ± 0.004	0.557 ± 0.001	0.700 ± 0.003	0.700 ± 0.003	1.85 ± 0.01	_	_
	ΔphoB	1.59 ± 0.29	1.66 ± 0.23	-	-	-	1.050 ± 0.001	1.330 ± 0.001	9.960 ± 0.001
	ΔphoR	-	-	-	-	-	0.910 ± 0.004	-	-
Acetate concentration (g/l)	Wild	0.046 ± 0.002	0.042 ± 0.001	0.410 ± 0.001	0.43 ± 0.07	0.41 ± 0.03	0.41 ± 0.02	_	_
	ΔphoB	0.255 ± 0.130	0.233 ± 0.030	_	_	_	0.346 ± 0.010	0.440 ± 0.010	0.002 ± 0.002
	ΔphoR	-	-	-	-	-	0.0035 ± 0.0010	-	-
Specific glucose uptake rate (mmol/gDCW/h)	Wild	2.69 ± 0.05	2.79 ± 0.02	3.024 ± 0.005	3.350 ± 0.001	3.717 ± 0.002	5.36 ± 0.01	_	_
	ΔphoB	2.72 ± 0.09	2.60 ± 0.07	_	_	_	2.730 ± 0.003	2.970 ± 0.001	0.890 ± 0.001
	ΔphoR	-	-	-	-	-	2.70 ± 0.004	-	-
Specific acetate production rate (mmol/gDCW/h)	Wild	0.040 ± 0.002	0.0380 ± 0.0001	0.394 ± 0.010	0.465 ± 0.003	0.491 ± 0.030	0.81 ± 0.02	_	_
	ΔphoB	0.247 ± 0.080	0.218 ± 0.033	_	_	_	0.317 ± 0.001	0.452 ± 0.010	0.133 ± 0.002
	ΔphoR	-	-	-	-	-	0.0031 ± 0.0010	-	-

Note: " - " indicates that no data was collected for this condition. The standard deviation was obtained by triplicate measurements.