The conventional starting point is not at the E. Coli K-12 MG1655 origin of replication.
biocyc.org/ECOLI/NEW-IMAGE?type=EXTRAGENIC-SITE&object=G0-10506 explains:If it is a bit hard to understand what they mean by "origin of transfer" though, as that term is usually associated with the origin of transfer of bacterial conjugation.
This site is the origin of replication of the E. coli chromosome. It contains the binding sites for DnaA, which is critical for initiation of replication. Replication proceeds bidirectionally. For historical reasons, the numbering of E. coli's circular chromosome does not start at the origin of replication, but at the origin of transfer during conjugation.
E. Coli Whole Cell Model by Covert Lab Install and first run by 
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16At 7e4cc9e57de76752df0f4e32eca95fb653ea64e4 you basically need to use the Docker image on Ubuntu 21.04 due to pip breaking changes... (not their fault). Perhaps pyenv would solve things, but who has the patience for that?!?!
The Docker setup from README does just work. The image download is a bit tedius, as it requires you to create a GitHub API key as described in the README, but there must be reasons for that.
Once the image is downloaded, you really want to run is from the root of the source tree:This mounts the host source under The meaning of each of the analysis commands is described at Section "Output overview".
sudo docker run --name=wcm -it -v "$(pwd):/wcEcoli" docker.pkg.github.com/covertlab/wholecellecolirelease/wcm-full/wcEcoli, so you can easily edit and view output images from your host. Once inside Docker we can compile, run the simulation, and analyze results with:make clean compile &&
python runscripts/manual/runFitter.py &&
python runscripts/manual/runSim.py &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisVariant.py &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisCohort.py &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisMultigen.py &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisSingle.pyAs a Docker refresher, after you stop the container, e.g. by restarting your computer or running
sudo docker stop wcm, you can get back into it with:sudo docker start wcm
sudo docker run -it wcm bashrunscripts/manual/runFitter.py takes about 15 minutes, and it generates files such as reconstruction/ecoli/dataclasses/process/two_component_system.py (related) which is required to run the simulation, it is basically a part of the build.runSim.py does the main simulation, progress output contains lines of type:Time (s) Dry mass Dry mass Protein RNA Small mol Expected
(fg) fold change fold change fold change fold change fold change
======== ======== =========== =========== =========== =========== ===========
0.00 403.09 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000
0.20 403.18 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 2569.18 783.09 1.943 1.910 2.005 1.950 1.963
Simulation finished:
- Length: 0:42:49
- Runtime: 0:09:13It would be boring if we could only simulate the same condition all the time, so let's have a look at the different boundary conditions that we can apply to the cell!
We are able to alter things like the composition of the external medium, and the genome of the bacteria, which will make the bacteria behave differently.
The variant selection is a bit cumbersome as we have to use indexes instead of names, but one you know what you are doing, it is fine.
Of course, genetic modification is limited only to experimentally known protein interactions due to the intractability of computational protein folding and computational chemistry in general, solving those would bsai.
E. Coli Whole Cell Model by Covert Lab Time series run variant by Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16
Ciro Santilli 40 Updated 2025-07-16To modify the nutrients as a function of time, with To select a time series we can use something like:As mentioned in
python runscripts/manual/runSim.py --variant nutrientTimeSeries 25 25python runscripts/manual/runSim.py --help, nutrientTimeSeries is one of the choices from github.com/CovertLab/WholeCellEcoliRelease/blob/7e4cc9e57de76752df0f4e32eca95fb653ea64e4/models/ecoli/sim/variants/__init__.py#L5725 25 means to start from index 25 and also end at 25, so running just one simulation. 25 27 would run 25 then 26 and then 27 for example.The timeseries with index 25 is so we understand that it starts with extra amino acids in the medium, which benefit the cell, and half way through those are removed at time 1200s = 20 minutes. We would therefore expect the cell to start expressing amino acid production genes exactly at that point.
reconstruction/ecoli/flat/condition/timeseries/000025_cut_aa.tsv and contains"time (units.s)" "nutrients"
0 "minimal_plus_amino_acids"
1200 "minimal"nutrients likely means condition in that file however, see bug report with 1 1 failing: github.com/CovertLab/WholeCellEcoliRelease/issues/24When we do this the simulation ends in:so we see that the doubling time was faster than the one with minimal conditions of
Simulation finished:
- Length: 0:34:23
- Runtime: 0:08:030:42:49, which makes sense, since during the first 20 minutes the cell had extra amino acid nutrients at its disposal.The output directory now contains simulation output data under
out/manual/nutrientTimeSeries_000025/. Let's run analysis and plots for that:python runscripts/manual/analysisVariant.py &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisCohort.py --variant 25 &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisMultigen.py --variant 25 &&
python runscripts/manual/analysisSingle.py --variant 25We can now compare the outputs of this run to the default
wildtype_000000 run from Section "Install and first run".out/manual/plotOut/svg_plots/massFractionSummary.svg: because we now have two variants in the sameout/folder,wildtype_000000andnutrientTimeSeries_000025, we now see a side by side comparision of both on the same graph!The run variant where we started with amino acids initially grows faster as expected, because the cell didn't have to make it's own amino acids, so growth is a bit more efficient.
The following plots from under
out/manual/wildtype_000000/000000/{generation_000000,nutrientTimeSeries_000025}/000000/plotOut/svg_plots have been manually joined side-by-side with:for f in out/manual/wildtype_000000/000000/generation_000000/000000/plotOut/svg_plots/*; do
echo $f
svg_stack.py \
--direction h \
out/manual/wildtype_000000/000000/generation_000000/000000/plotOut/svg_plots/$(basename $f) \
out/manual/nutrientTimeSeries_000025/000000/generation_000000/000000/plotOut/svg_plots/$(basename $f) \
> tmp/$(basename $f)
done
Amino acid counts
. Source. aaCounts.svg:- default: quantities just increase
- amino acid cut: there is an abrupt fall at 20 minutes when we cut off external supply, presumably because it takes some time for the cell to start producing its own
External exchange fluxes of amino acids
. Source. aaExchangeFluxes.svg:- default: no exchanges
- amino acid cut: for all graphs except phenylalanine (PHE), either the cell was intaking the AA (negative flux), and that intake goes to 0 when the supply is cut, or the flux is always 0.
mRNA count of highly expressed mRNAs
. Source. From file expression_rna_03_high.svg. Each of the entries is a gene using the conventional gene naming convention of xyzW, e.g. here's the BioCyc for the first entry, tufA: biocyc.org/gene?orgid=ECOLI&id=EG11036, which comments Elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) is the most abundant protein in E. coli.
External exchange fluxes
. Source. mediaExcange.svg: this one is similar to aaExchangeFluxes.svg, but it also tracks other substances. The color version makes it easier to squeeze more substances in a given space, but you lose the shape of curves a bit. The title seems reversed: red must be excretion, since that's where glucose (GLC) is.The substances are different between the default and amino acid cut graphs, they seem to be the most exchanged substances. On the amino cut graph, first we see the cell intaking most (except phenylalanine, which is excreted for some reason). When we cut amino acids, the uptake of course stops.
Likely implies whole brain emulation and therefore AGI.
By Tagkopoulos lab at University of California, Davies.
- www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13090 Multi-omics integration accurately predicts cellular state in unexplored conditions for Escherichia coli (2016)
- www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161027173552.htm
Reference strain: E. Coli K-12 MG1655.
Transcription factor for E. Coli K-12 MG1655 operon thrLABC as shown at biocyc.org/ECOLI/NEW-IMAGE?object=TU0-42486.
Note that this is very close to the "end" of the genome.
Contains the genes: e. Coli K-12 MG1655 gene thrL, e. Coli K-12 MG1655 gene thrA, e. Coli K-12 MG1655 gene thrB and e. Coli K-12 MG1655 gene thrC, all of which have directly linked functionality.
We can find it by searching for the species in the BioCyc promoter database. This leads to: biocyc.org/group?id=:ALL-PROMOTERS&orgid=ECOLI.
That page lists several components of the promoter, which we should try to understand!
Some of the transcription factors are proteins:
After the first gene in the codon, thrL, there is a rho-independent termination. By comparing:we understand that the presence of threonine or isoleucine variants, L-threonyl and L-isoleucyl, makes the rho-independent termination become more efficient, so the control loop is quite direct! Not sure why it cares about isoleucine as well though.
- www.quora.com/How-is-a-voice-transmitted-from-one-phone-to-another
- www.quora.com/How-many-wires-does-a-telephone-use/answer/Peter-Yardley-1
Basic analogue phones connected to the public exchange use two wires mainly arranged as a twisted pair to reduce noise. The voice signal is differential (the voltage in one wire equal and opposite to the other) biased above ground by 48V. Using a twisted pair reduces induced noise because the noise signal will induce an equal voltage in each wire and because the signal is transmitted as the difference the effect of the induced noise will be dramatically reduced.
Phone Intercom by Make (2014)
Source. This video illustrates will the incredible simplicity of the connection of a telephone system. Compare that to the relative complexity of wireless communication, which requires modulation. Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
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