In Article <9411291423.AA17472 at isnet.is.wfu.edu> "bwasilau at ISNET.IS.WFU.EDU (B. Wasilauskas)" says:
> At 04:12 PM 11/28/94 EST, rrk1 at vms.cis.pitt.edu wrote:
> >I have been working with a strain of E. coli which does not have
> >the characteristic E.coli smell. This would, by itself f, be
> >unremarkable except that I recently started a new plate culture of the .....
>> Rick:
> E. coli along with the other enteric organisms are proteolytic organisms and
> as such will degrade the protein in the media to various breakdown products
> including basic amines such as putrescine and cadaverine which give it a
> rather distinctive "bad" smell. This is in in contrast to organisms like
> Pseudomonas which is more saccharolytic and attachs sugars producing more
> pleasant smelling alcohols, esters etc. I would not attempt to identify E.
> coli on the basis of smell alone, since other enterics can have similar odors.
> Ben Wasilauskas
>>I have often found the smell helpful in differentiating rhizobia
from E. coli.
K
