E. Coli?????????????

Question

When was the first outbreak of E. Coli, when was it discovered and by who, and any other info you have about it.

Answer 1

Escherichia coli was discovered in 1885 by Theodor Escherich, a German pediatrician and bacteriologist. It is one of the main species of bacteria that make up the normal gut flora in mammals. Most strains of E. coli do not cause disease, but there are 100s of strains that do cause intestinal and extra-intestinal infections (e.g. gastroenteritis, urinary tract infections, meningitis, peritonitis, mastitis, septicemia and gram-negative pneumonia). One of the most virulent pathogenic strains of E. coli is the O157:H7 strain.

As E. coli is found in most mamallian guts and is present in much larger concentrations than pathogens (e.g Salmonella), the presence of it in surface water is often used as a common indicator of faecal contamination. As it is easily cultured and reasonably quick growing, it is used as a model organism for molecular research. As they are easy to manipulate, they can be altered with recombinant DNA to synthesise DNA and/or proteins, which can then be produced in large quantities using industrial fermentation processes. One of the first uses of this technique was to produce human insulin.

Technically, E. coli is defined as a "coliform". Coliforms are defined as aerobic and facultative anaerobic, non-spore-forming, Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacteria that ferment lactose within 48 hours at 35 °C (95 °F). E. coli cells are elongated, 1–2 µm in length and 0.1–0.5 µm in diameter.

Answer 2

all i know is that all of it came from the same vegitable processing plant.