Fig. 2

MIC₅₀ of alcohols increases in the presence of glucose. The % growth inhibition with increasing concentration of hexanol, pentanol, butanol, propanol and ethanol, in the absence and presence of 5 g/L of glucose. Growth was normalised to the control cultures without alcohol. Error bars denote standard deviations of three biological replicates. The P value of the difference between the % growth inhibition of E. coli in the presence and absence of glucose is determined by unpaired t test. P value < 0.05 is considered significant and marked as *. The shift in the MIC₅₀ values (determined in Additional file 2: Figure S1) for each alcohol in the presence of 5 g/L of glucose in comparison with the MIC₅₀ in the absence of glucose is also shown