Brain Heart Infusion Medium

[Patricia Foster]

  BHI medium just came up in another thread, so I
thought I would post a question about it.  On advice
from experts, I have started using it to grow colonies
for subsequent hybridization to oligonucleotides.  
E. coli really *likes* this stuff.  The growth is 
much more vigorous than on LB.
  So my questions are:
1.  what is the magic ingredient?  They grow better
on BHI than LB+glucose, 2xYT, or any other super medium
I have tried.
2.  Why don't we all use it all the time?  Is
there a fundamental change in E. coli's metabolism
when in BHI?

Pat
--
Patricia L. Foster
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, MA USA
pfoster at bu.edu