Hi, I am working on a project in which I am transforming a DNA library contatining vector into E. coli bacterial cells. I need the cells to produce my protein of interrest (also coded in the mentioned plasmid), but I still need to maintain high relative complexity of the implemented library. For this purpose I need to slow the cell division process so each cell in the suspension still contains different genetic information. If the bacteria will undergo a cell division process, the relative complexity of the library will get lower (meaning there will be many cells carrying the same copy of the plasmid).

So what I am looking for here is a substance which will stop (or slow down) a cell division process in bacteria, but still keep the bacteria alive and able to produce the protein coded in the transformed plasmid. I stubmled across different bacteriostatic substances but the problem is that usually these chemicalls disrupt the protein production machinery (either on nucleic acid or protein level) and therefore the desired protein can not be produced efficiently.

Does anyone have any recomendations? Or did anyone try to solve a similar problem? Thank you for any kind of response.