Cell Survival — Case of Escherichia coli in Nature

Dear Colleagues,

Enteric bacteria do not grow in the intestinal environment, their natural habitat, for long periods. Instead, they are released into the natural environment through excretion from the animal. After that, individual bacteria that can survive in various environments in nature can return to the animal intestine of their next host. In the E. coli O157 outbreak in Sakai in 1996, Japan, the possibility of shellfish radish remained a possibility, although final confirmation was not reached. The distribution of E. coli in lakes and marshes, etc., thought to be spread into the environment from wild animal excretions, also indicates that E. coli survival in nature is part of its life cycle. Model E. coli has a large genome for a bacterium, with over 4000 genes. This is thought to be due to the acquisition of diverse genes to survive many natural environments. Many genes are not expressed in laboratory conditions or are very poorly expressed, and their physiological functions are still unknown. Enterobacteria in nature are released into the natural environment through excretion after growing in the animal gut. They return to the animal intestinal environment, including humans, if they cannot survive the diverse natural environment. The life cycle from the natural environment to the animal intestinal environment is considered the life cycle of enterobacteria in nature. Understanding the entire life cycle of enterobacteria, including model Escherichia coli, between the animal intestine and in natural environments, is important not only from biological and insurance-hygiene perspectives but also from the mechanism of the generation of pathogenic enterobacteria.

In this Special Issue, we will focus on how bacteria classified as enterobacteria survive in diverse natural environments after being released into the natural environment and provide an opportunity to consider the entire life cycle of enterobacteria, which move between the natural environment and the animal intestinal environment.

Dr. Hirotada Mori
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• enteric bacteria
• intestinal bacteria
• E. coli
• Salmonella