Derived estimation for number of glucose molecules consumed to make one cell

Value 2e+9 Copies/cell
Organism Bacteria Escherichia coli
Reference See measurement method for derivation
Method From Rob Phillips and Ron Milo, "A Feeling for the Numbers in Biology", in press: With water content of about 70% (BNID 100044) the measured dry mass is ~0.3-0.5 pg (BNID 103892). The elemental composition of E. coli is such that about half the mass is carbon (BNID 100649) and therefore there are about 10^10 carbon atoms per cell (BNID 103010). Thus it requires the carbons from about ~2×10^9 glucose molecules to make a new cell when considering only the required carbon building material.
Comments A value of 1.4×10^9 is given in link
Entered by Ron Milo, Paul Jorgensen, Mike Springer
ID 100179