Escherichia coli
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2019-03-12

Escherichia coli, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40114 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Escherichia_coli
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Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli (), also known as E. coli (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus "Escherichia" that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms (endotherms). Most "E. coli" strains are harmless, but some serotypes can cause serious food poisoning in their hosts, and are occasionally responsible for product recalls due to food contamination. The harmless strains are part of the normal microbiota of the gut, and can benefit their hosts by producing vitamin K, and preventing colonization of the intestine with pathogenic bacteria, having a symbiotic relationship. "E. coli" is expelled into the environment within fecal matter. The bacterium grows massively in fresh fecal matter under aerobic conditions for 3 days, but its numbers decline slowly afterwards.

"E. coli" and other facultative anaerobes constitute about 0.9% of gut microbiota, and fecal–oral transmission is the major route through which pathogenic strains of the bacterium cause disease. Cells are able to survive outside the body for a limited amount of time, which makes them potential indicator organisms to test environmental samples for fecal contamination. A growing body of research, though, has examined environmentally persistent "E. coli" which can survive for extended periods outside a host.

The bacterium can be grown and cultured easily and inexpensively in a laboratory setting, and has been intensively investigated for over 60 years. "E. coli" is a chemoheterotroph whose chemically defined medium must include a source of carbon and energy. "E. coli" is the most widely studied prokaryotic model organism, and an important species in the fields of biotechnology and microbiology, where it has served as the...