Commensal majority
Most strains stay in the colon and do not invade.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Familiarity82
Medical weight75
Benefit55
Risk70
Research85
Live debate38
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Where should I start with Escherichia coli?
Read Identity → How they live → Body & health, then use compare rails.
Is this page advice for Escherichia coli?
Public-health education — not a care plan, prescription, or outbreak briefing.
What does the local lens add?
It names everyday desks for Encounters before English norms look universal.
Are the scores a ranking of Escherichia coli?
No — editorial 0–100 browsing aids inside this atlas only.
How do I compare Escherichia coli to neighbours?
Use related cards and best-of / quiz rails after the first three chapters.
Which chapter is densest?
How they live and Body & health carry mechanisms; skim Identity first.
Identity is a Gram-negative rod of the gut, used as a water marker, and split into commensal versus pathogenic types.
Calling every E. coli a germ erases the neighbor that already lives in most people.
Traits
Pathotype minority
STEC, ETEC, EPEC and others are defined by toxin or adhesion toolkits.
O and H names
Lipopolysaccharide and flagellar antigens give outbreak filing names such as O157:H7.
Indicator role
Finding E. coli in treated water is a process-failure signal.
Lab domestication
K-12 lost many wild traits over decades. That history is not a home protocol.
Plasmid luggage
Some virulence and resistance genes ride mobile DNA between strains.
Outbreak names like O157 are serotype labels, not moral ranks.
Keep exploring
More in Encounters
Influenza
A winter respiratory virus of drift and rare shift — surveillance and vaccines, not a cartoon villain.
Familiarity 93Tuberculosis
An airborne bacillus of latency and long care — programmes and air, not a drug recipe.
Familiarity 70Staphylococcus aureus
A common skin neighbor and a resistance story called MRSA — not scare porn.
Familiarity 78Norovirus
A very-low-dose gut virus of schools and ships — soap and bleach surfaces, not alcohol-gel faith.
Familiarity 80Helicobacter pylori
A gastric spiral that rewrote the ulcer textbook — Nobel 2005, Korea's high historic prevalence, no recipes.
Familiarity 68