Introductory Chapter: The Versatile *Escherichia coli*

*Marjanca Starčič Erjavec*

## **1. Introduction**

There are not so many organisms that are so well studied and researched as the bacterium *Escherichia coli* (*E. coli*). Since its discovery in 1885, it was used in research, and by end of 2018, there are now already 368,071 publications in PubMed about *E. coli* [1]. **Figure 1**, presenting data about number of publications found in PubMed for the search term "*Escherichia coli*" in the time frame from 1932 to 2018, clearly demonstrates the high and still growing research interest in this microbe.

#### **Figure 1.**

*Number of publications in PubMed for the search term "Escherichia coli" in the time frame from January 01, 1932 to December 31, 2018 [1].*
