RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Du, Bin A1 Olson, Connor A. A1 Sastry, Anand V. A1 Fang, Xin A1 Phaneuf, Patrick V. A1 Chen, Ke A1 Wu, Muyao A1 Szubin, Richard A1 Xu, Sibei A1 Gao, Ye A1 Hefner, Ying A1 Feist, Adam M. A1 Palsson, Bernhard O.YR 2020 T1 Adaptive laboratory evolution of Escherichia coli under acid stress JF Microbiology, VO 166 IS 2 SP 141 OP 148 DO https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.000867 PB Microbiology Society, SN 1465-2080, AB The ability of Escherichia coli to tolerate acid stress is important for its survival and colonization in the human digestive tract. Here, we performed adaptive laboratory evolution of the laboratory strain E. coli K-12 MG1655 at pH 5.5 in glucose minimal medium. After 800 generations, six independent populations under evolution had reached 18.0 % higher growth rates than their starting strain at pH 5.5, while maintaining comparable growth rates to the starting strain at pH 7. We characterized the evolved strains and found that: (1) whole genome sequencing of isolated clones from each evolved population revealed mutations in rpoC appearing in five of six sequenced clones; and (2) gene expression profiles revealed different strategies to mitigate acid stress, which are related to amino acid metabolism and energy production and conversion. Thus, a combination of adaptive laboratory evolution, genome resequencing and expression profiling revealed, on a genome scale, the strategies that E. coli uses to mitigate acid stress., UL https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.000867