Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli (; commonly abbreviated E. coli ) is a Gram-negative , rod-shaped bacterium 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 humans , and are occasionally responsible for people making product recalls . The harmless strains are part of the normal flora of the gut , and can benefit their hosts by producing vitamin K 2 , and by preventing the establishment of pathogenic bacteria within the intestine. E. coli and related bacteria constitute about 0.1% of gut flora , 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 ideal indicator organisms to test environmental samples for fecal contamination .. There is, however, a growing body of research that has examined environmentally persistent E. coli which can survive for extended periods of time outside of the host . The bacterium can also be grown easily and inexpensively in a laboratory setting, and has been intensively investigated for over 60 years. 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 host organism for the majority of work with recombinant DNA .

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