Figure 3. The proposed mechanism results in added cell size distribution being independent of the newborn cell size.

(a) The cell volume grows exponentially (shown for three different newborn cell sizes) until the timekeeper protein reaches a critical threshold. (b) The size added to the newborn cell size also grows exponentially until division takes place. For three different newborn cell sizes, the distribution of the the added volume comes out to be same. (c) The added size generated via simulations is plotted against the newborn cell size in range 2–3.5 μm for 10,000 cells. The cells are further binned in 13 uniformly spaced bins (number of cells per bin >100). The dashed line shows the mean of the added volume, which is independent of the newborn cell size. (d) Data from⁶ showing the added size versus newborn cell size for Escherichia coli NCM3722 grown in Glucose as carbon source. Cells were categorized into bins according to their newborn cell size (number of cells per bin >100). For each bin, the circle shows mean of the added size whereas the error bar represents the standard deviation of the added size. It can be seen that the mean added cell size (shown by dashed line) is independent of the newborn cell size (also see Fig. 2D in ref. 6).