Why can't a cell grow infinitely fast?

Abstract

Living cells are esoteric physicochemical systems that have evolved to survive and reproduce in their natural environment. Under balanced conditions of growth, bacteria are probably systems as simple as any kind of free-living organism. Evolutionary forces, seemingly, should have driven prokaryotes to be very efficient. In part that is so; they make effective use of the machinery most expensive for the cell, i.e., the ribosomes and associated factors. But the evidence is that the efficiency with which they use the ribosomal machinery increases as the environment provides more favorable conditions for balanced growth. This article emphasizes the limitation to growth under optimal conditions. The role of fluctuations in the environment and the cost of accurate protein synthesis are discussed as reasons for the upper limit in obtainable specific growth rate.