Functions connecting successive antibiotic target binding with bacterial replication and death in bacteriostatic and bactericidal drugs.

These graphs show which functions were used to fit the dependence of bacterial replication, r(x), and death, δ(x), on target occupancy for antibiotics with bacteriostatic, bactericidal or mixed action. Solid lines indicate a sigmoidal relationship, dotted lines indicate a step function, dashed lines indicate a linear relationship, and dash-dotted lines indicate independence, i.e. a constant replication or death rate. The left panels, show the replication rates (blue), the right panels show the death rates (red). The top panels, show rates for a bacteriostatic drug, the middle panels, show rates for a bactericidal drug, and the bottom panels, show rates for a drug with mixed effects. The sum of the replication and death rates at certain target occupancies gives the net growth or decline rate of the bacterial population.

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