A grad student has a culture of E. coli with a total volume of600 mL, and OD reading at 550 nm of 1.7. He makes serial dilutionsof the culture, starting with a transfer of 1 mL culture into 9 mLtryptone broth. Next, he transfers 0.1 mL of this dilution into 0.9mL tryptone broth, and repeats this two more times to make a totalof 4 serial dilutions. He then pipets 200 uL from the fourthdilution on an agar plate, spreads it over the surface, and putsthe plate in an incubator to grow overnight. The next day, hecounts 152 cfus (colony forming units) on the plate.
How many viable cells are present in the 600 mL startingculture?
Answer is 4,560,000,000 but need to show work.
