Fig. 4: Application of the Biodome tool to characterize the E. coli volatilome across the log and stationary phases of growth.

a Venn diagram shows the number of unique and common volatile organic compounds (VOCs) detected in the bacterial and broth conditions. Pie charts show the breakdown of VOC functional groups specific to each group. b Principal component analysis using VOCs presented in Table 2 shows the E. coli volatilome is distinct from the broth control. c Line plots for four high confidence VOCs showing log₁₀ transformed abundance across three days of sampling. Each time point was measured in biologically independent triplicate, with error bars representing ± standard error of the mean. Day one represents the cumulative volatilome between 0-24 hours of growth, day 2 between 24-48 hours, and the final day capturing 48–72 hours. d Boxplots for the same four VOCs showing expression of these metabolites are significantly elevated in the E. coli experimental condition, after correcting for multiple hypothesis testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg p-value adjustment procedure⁵¹. The median is indicated by the solid black line, and first and third quartiles are captured by the bounds of the box. Boxplot whiskers are defined as the first and third quartiles –/+ interquartile range times 1.5, respectively. Minimum and maximum values are captured by the lowermost and uppermost points, respectively, or whisker bound if no outliers are shown. The light red color represents the E. coli observations while the light blue indicates the LB broth control.