**6. Conclusions**

In the present study, we retrieved nearly 100,000 scientific articles on *E. coli* from the PubMed bibliographic database and investigated the intellectual structure and evolution using co-word analysis. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic knowledge mapping in the field of *E. coli* research. The analysis performed clearly revealed the main research topics in *E. coli* research over the last decades. Based on this analysis, major, niche, and basic topics in *E. coli* research were identified in each decade studied, and new topics are expected to emerge. The future in the field of *E. coli* research lies in single-cell analysis.
