Carbon catabolite repression correlates with the maintenance of near invariant molecular crowding in proliferating E. coli cells

Background Carbon catabolite repression (CCR) is critical for optimal bacterial growth, and in bacterial (and yeast) cells it leads to their selective consumption of a single substrate from a complex environment. However, the root cause(s) for the development of this regulatory mechanism is unknown. Previously, a flux balance model (FBAwMC) of Escherichia coli metabolism that takes into account the crowded intracellular milieu of the bacterial cell correctly predicted selective glucose uptake in a medium containing five different carbon sources, suggesting that CCR may be an adaptive mechanism that ensures optimal bacterial metabolic network activity for growth.