Percent of total cell dry mass of exponentially growing cell that is ribosomes (probably under the fastest growth conditions, ~20 min doubling time)

Range 40 to 50 %
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference Ridgway D et al., Coarse-grained molecular simulation of diffusion and reaction kinetics in a crowded virtual cytoplasm. Biophys J. 2008 May 15 94(10):3748-59. doi: 10.1529/biophysj.107.116053 p.3752 left column 2nd paragraphPubMed ID18234819
Primary Source Hyun Shik Yun, Juan Hong, Henry C. Lim Analysis of functioning ribosome content in Escherichia coli at different growth rates, Biotechnology Techniques 1991 11/12, Volume 5, Issue 6, pp 471-474 p.471 2nd paragraph (introduction section)
Comments "Since ribosomes constitute 40–50% of the total cell mass of exponentially growing E. coli (primary source), a separate ribosomal class was introduced that assumed a copy number of 18,000 ribosomes per cell (60) contributing to a total density of 0.34 g/ml (10)."
Entered by Uri M
ID 109048