GLOBAL ANALYSIS OF A MODEL OF PLASMID-BEARING, PLASMID-FREE COMPETITION IN A CHEMOSTAT

A model of competition between plasmid-bearing and plasmid-free organisms in a chemostat was proposed in a paper of Stephanopoulis and Lapidus. The model was in the form of a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations, Such models are relevant to commercial production by genetically altered organisms in continuous culture. The analysis there was local (using index arguments). This paper provides a mathematically rigorous analysis of the global asymptotic behavior of the governing equations in the case of uninhibited specific growth rate.