A grad student has a culture of E. coli with a total volume of 800 mL, and OD reading at 550 nm of 2.2. He makes serial dilutions of the culture, starting with a transfer of 1 mL culture into 9 mL tryptone broth. Next, he transfers 0.1 mL of this dilution into 0.9 mL tryptone broth, and repeats this two more times to make a total of 5 serial dilutions. He then pipets 150 uL from the fifth dilution on an agar plate, spreads it over the surface, and put s the plate in an incubator to grow overnight. The next day, he counts 340 cfus (colony forming units) on the plate. a. What is the dilution in the third tube? Answer with the exponent to the power of 10, that is ? in 10?
b. What is the dilution of cells spread onto the agar plate? Answer in decimal notation.
c. How many viable cells are present in the 1,800 mL starting culture? Answer in decimal notation.