Plasmid Segregational Instability in Fermentation

An engineered bacterial strain only makes its product for as long as it keeps its production plasmid. This simulator runs a live 3D bioreactor of nearly a thousand cells and models the two forces that erode a producing population generation after generation: imperfect plasmid partitioning at cell division, and the metabolic burden that makes plasmid-bearing "producer" cells divide slower than plasmid-free "cheater" cells that arise from that partitioning failure. Selection pressure — an antibiotic that only producers can survive — is the standard industrial countermeasure, and the sliders let you find the combination of burden, loss rate and selection strength that keeps a fermentation run stable versus one where cheaters silently take over the tank before harvest.