Drastic high magnetic field effect on suppression of Escherichia coli death

When Escherichia coli B was aerobically grown in a medium containing one-fourth the concentration of the LB medium supplemented with glutamic acid at 43 degreesC under an inhomogeneous 5.2-6.1 T magnetic field, the number of cells in the stationary phase under the high magnetic field was 100,000 times higher than that under a geomagnetic field. The finding that the amount of sigma S factor encoded by the rpoS gene under the high magnetic field was larger than that under the control geomagnetic field indicated that the activity of the rpoS gene was affected by the high magnetic field. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.