The cellGrowth package

Growth is a key cellular phenotype relevant in areas ranging from microbiology to cancer biology. Hence, quantitative measures of growth must be accurately estimated. Historically, many parametric models have been proposed, reviewed in ([1]). However, in our experience, growth curves rarely follow these idealistic behaviours. In practice, non-parametric models, in which curves are simply smoothed to reduce noise in the data, do a better job for capturing all possible behaviours. This package provides fitting growth curves in non-parametric (local regression) and parametric models. It determines the maximum growth rate, e.g. generations per time unit, and the maximum of growths. It comes with neat plotting functions, automatic bandwidth selection for non-parametric models and handles data coming in well plate format. This vignette demonstrates the key features of cellGrowth, i.e fitting one growth curve, handling multiple machine runs for plates coming in 96-well plate format and automatic bandwidth selection. The last section describes how to handle custom data formats.