Extended Data Fig. 5: Effects of formation of compartments on the cell growth and morphology.

The growth (a), length (b), and width (c) of E. coli cells expressing recombinant major ampullate spidroin 1 (I16) and resilin-like protein (R32), and the control cells harboring empty vector. All cells were induced with 200 µM IPTG at 30 °C, and cell OD₆₀₀ measured at the indicated time after induction. For evaluation of cell size, the cell samples were taken at 6 h post-induction for bright field light microscopy analyses. The data in a are presented as mean ± s.d. of n = 3 biologically independent samples, with individual data points shown. The data in b and c represent the average of 20 cells and error bars correspond to the standard deviations. Statistical significance was determined using one-way ANOVA for P values. Note that neither the cell length nor width was significantly altered upon protein production. Data in a-c are representative of n = 2 independent experiments.