Commercially available rich defined medium

We tried growing E. coli K-12 in Minimum Essential Medium (MEM) alpha Medium (1X), liquid. (Contains L-glutamine, ribonucleosides, and deoxyribonucleosides, but no phenol red.) Product # 41061 from Invitrogen. A description can be found on their webpage here.

A growth curve was measured in MEM + 0.2% glucose. The innoculum was a variant of E. coli K-12 (NOT the sequenced strain - the strain used here was from an old stab culture that grows slowly in minimal medium). E. coli grew fine but we did not do any detailed analysis, and decided to use Neidhardt's MOPS based medium instead.