Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.11.18.388744v1?rss=1 Authors: Pang, T. Y., Lercher, M. Abstract: A substantial fraction of the bacterial cytosol is occupied by catalysts and their substrates. While a higher volume density of catalysts and substrates might boost biochemical fluxes, the resulting molecular crowding can slow down diffusion, perturb the reactions' Gibbs free energies, and reduce the catalytic efficiency of proteins. Due to these tradeoffs, dry mass density likely possesses an optimum that facilitates maximal cellular growth and that is interdependent on the cytosolic molecule size distribution. Here, we analyse the balanced growth of a model cell with metabolic and ribosomal reactions, accounting systematically for crowding effects on reaction kinetics. We find that changes in cytosolic density affect biochemical efficiency more strongly for ribosomal reactions than for metabolic reactions, which involve much smaller catalysts and reactants. Accordingly, optimal cytosolic density depends on cellular resource allocation into ribosomal vs. metabolic reactions. A shift in the relative contributions of these sectors to the cellular economy explains the 10% difference in the cytosolic density between E. coli bacteria growing in nutrient-rich and -poor environments. We conclude that cytosolic density variation in E. coli is consistent with an optimality principle of cellular efficiency. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info