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Abstract
A growing hyphal tip is analogous to a molten glass bubble blown under special conditions. These conditions are that the pressure is constant throughout the tip and that the surface tension is very low at the apex and increases towards infinity with distance from the tip. The biological correlate for low surface tension at the apex of the hypha is that enzymic activity and rate of fusion of vesicles are very high in the immediate vicinity of the apex. A formula is developed to allow the calculation of the rate of synthesis at a point on the tip from its distance from the axis and the slope of the tip at that point.
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© Society for General Microbiology, 1982