Fig. 1

Growth patterns of E. coli in minimal media supplemented with exogenous PUFAs as additional carbon sources and as sole carbon sources. a Bacteria were grown in CM9 supplemented with 300 μM of individual PUFAs at 37 °C for 12 h. b Bacteria were grown in glucose-deficient M9 media supplemented with 1 mM of individual fatty acids as sole carbon sources at 37 °C for 12 h. An ethanol control (67 μM) is included to account for the highest volume of ethanol-dissolved fatty acid supplemented. Graphs represent averages and standard deviations of 3 independent experiments. All standard deviations not visualized by error bars are < 0.13 (a) or < 0.03 (b). Asterisk indicates significance (p < 0.04) calculated using Student’s T-test (2-tail, 2 sample equal variance) comparing growth from hours 6–12 versus control (No FA) sample. Arrows indicate time at which CFU/ml was determined (see Supplemental Table 1)