Arnold and Kaspar (1995) studied starvation-induced acid toerance in E. coli O157: H7 at 4 Cand 25 C in synthetic gastric fluid. Starvation at 4 C decreased acid tolerance, whe cells starved at 25 C showed enhanced acid tolerance. Similarly, survival rates of two O157: H7 strains in broth SB) at pH levels both low (pH 2) and high (pH 12) were lower at 4 C than 25 C (Miller and Kaspar 1994). In E. coli, protein synthe is not likely to occur at temperatures below 8 C (Broeze and 1978). Incubation at 4 C may have inhibited protein synthesis necessary for acid tolerance. Moreover, addition of chloramphenicol to cells suspended in PBS resulted in less acid tolerant cells than those starved without (iang and others 1993). This supported the need for protein synthe- sis in starvation-induced acid tolerance. As did previous findings that starvation-induced protein synthesis protected E. coli against both chemical and physical challenges (Jenkins and others 1988 1990; Hen 1993b Kolter and others 1993.