Fig. 3: Rescaled cell size distributions.

a The results for M9(glucose (Glc) + amino acids (a.a.)) → PBS. The dashed line represents the fitted log-normal distribution (σ = 0.31(2)). The data were taken from 17 wells recorded in a single experiment. The sample size ranges from n(0) = 685 to n(180) = 1260 (see Supplementary Fig. 4). (Inset) Time evolution of the non-rescaled cell size distributions at \(t=0,10,20,30,40,50,60,90,120,180\ \min\). b The results for M9(glucose (Glc)) → PBS. The dashed line represents the fitted log-normal distribution (σ = 0.29(2)). The data were taken from 26 wells recorded in a single experiment. The sample size ranges from n(0) = 836 to n(200) = 2160 (see Supplementary Fig. 4). (Inset) Time evolution of the non-rescaled cell size distributions at \(t=0,10,20,30,40,50,60,80,100,150,200\ \min\). c Experimental results of F(v/V(t)) = vp(v, t) for the three cases studied in this work. The raw data obtained at different times are shown by thin lines with relatively light colors, and the time-averaged data are shown by the bold lines. The time-averaged distributions (bold lines) are found to be slightly but significantly different among the three cases. The difference can also be seen in the instantaneous distributions (thin lines; see the inset for enlargement near the peak). d Fitting of the experimentally obtained F(x) (solid lines; time-averaged data in (c) are shown) to the log-normal distribution (yellow dotted line). Also shown is the fitting result by Giometto et al.¹ for unicellular eukaryotes (green dotted line). σ is the standard deviation parameter of the log-normal distribution (see text).