Figure 2. Average Lineage Showing Old Pole Effect on Growth Rate.

The first division in the microcolonies is not represented, as the identity of the poles is not known until after one division (hence each initial cell gives rise to two lineages that are tracked separately, and subsequently combined from all films to create the single average lineage shown here). The lengths of the lines connecting cells to their progeny are proportional to the average growth rate of that cell; a longer line represents a higher growth rate for that cell. At each division, the cell inheriting the old pole is placed on the right side of the division pair, and shown in red, while new poles are placed on the left side of each pair, and shown in blue (note that this choice of orientation is not the same as that of Figure 1, to compare more easily old and new pole lineages). Because the position of the start of the growth line for each new generation is dependent on the generations that preceded it, the difference in growth rates is cumulative. Green lines indicate the point at which the first cell divides in the last four generations. Nine generations from 94 films encompassing 35,049 cells are included in this tree. The average growth rate of all the cells corresponds to a doubling time of 28.2+/−0.1 min. The data used to generate the average lineage are provided in Dataset S1.