The effect of multi parameter nutritional regime on Escherichia coli strains

Escherichia coli (E.coli) is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals it is part of the feces of the animal. Fecal-oral transmission is the major route through which pathogenic types of the bacteria cause disease. E.coli are able to survive for a limited amount of time outside the body approximately 2 weeks (E.P.A., 2005).  Escherichia coli are capable of growing in environments ranging from very dilute aqueous solutions of nutrients to media containing molar concentrations of salts or non-electrolyte solutes. This is one of the reasons why E. coli can grow in different types of media and environments. E.coli strains differ among warm-blooded animals, because of their diet and, possibly, environmental factor in the gut of the animal. This research is focused in the examination E.coli and the different strains in the animal gut and comparing the growth rate of the different strains. I hypothesize that the growth rate will vary among E. coli species, based on their growth medium which will be model after animals diet (T. Record, 2009). We are using a genetic method called Ribotyping . This method requires selective cultivation of indicator bacteria from feces samples. We cultivated the bacteria and the identification of E.coli isolates were confirmed with MacConkey agar with MUG method and with enterotube II (BD Diagnostic Systems, Heidelberg, Germany).