Figure 8.

Growth inhibition in response to an exponentially-decaying dose of antibiotic. (a): Illustration of the dosing protocol. The total dose S_xT_x is fixed at 4 × IC₅₀. (b) Results for the low-affinity antibiotic, with parameters as in table 1. The coloured lines represent doses of different duration and intensity, from T_x = 0.1h (blue) to T_x = 2.2 h (red), keeping the total dose fixed. The colour bars show the dose duration T_x. (c) Results for the high-affinity antibiotic, with parameters as in table 1. Colours are as in (b). (d) Time taken to recover from a step dose of antibiotic, as a function of the duration / intensity of the dose. ‘Recovery’ is defined as an increase in λ(t) to a value 0.9λ₀, having previously been below this threshold. The recovery time is defined as the total time during which the growth rate is suppressed below 0.9 × λ₀. The solid line shows results for the low-affinity antibiotic, the symbols show results for the high-affinity antibiotic.