Blog 15!

E-coli is a prokaryote without a nuclear membrane.  E-Coli is a rod-shaped bacteria.  It is a bacteria that grows in warmer environments and also it is able to survive outside of a host.  Usually when someone hears the word E-coli, they automatically think of food poisoning and other negative connotations such as vomiting and other stomach pains if you are infected with it.  However, even though some forms of E-coli are dangerous, the majority of them are actually completely harmless.  E-coli is in your body all the time and does good things for it.  It lives in your intestines.  E-coli can help with digestion as well as release Vitamin B and Vitamin K.  They can also prevent other harmful bacteria such as pathogenic bacteria that would otherwise reside in the intestine, E-coli helps to prevent this.   E-coli are often used as model organisms in labs.  One reason is that E-coli can be grown very easily and inexpensively.  E-coli has a cell division rate of about once every thirty minutes, making it a easy type of cell to do different types of experiments on that wont be extremely long term.  E-coli can also be manipulated in labs to produce any DNA or RNA