Swimming motility Each strain was incubated on LB agar plates for 24 h at 28°C. Plates of LB medium solidified with 0.3% agar were inoculated by stabbing colonies with a toothpick and inserting the end of the toothpick selleck compound just below the surface of the agar. Three colonies were picked from three plates and incubated at 28°C until a migration halo appeared. Hemolysis

assay Hemolysis was performed essentially as described by Dacheux [25]. Sheep red blood cells (RBCs), obtained from Eurobio (France), were washed three times in PBS (pH 7.2, 0.8% NaCl, 0.02% KCl, 0.17% Na2HPO4, 0.8% KH2PO4) and resuspended in RPMI-1640 medium without pH indicator (Sigma) at a density of 5 × 108 RBCs mL-1 at 4°C. Bacteria were grown in LB to an OD580 nm of 0.7 – 1.5, centrifuged and resuspended in RPMI-1640 at 5 × 108 bacteria mL-1. Hemolysis assays were started by

mixing 100 μL of RBCs and 100 μL of bacteria, which were than centrifuged at 1500 g or 400 g for 10 minutes and incubated at 37°C for 1 h. The release of hemoglobin was measured at 540 nm, after centrifugation, in 100 μL of cell supernatant. Seliciclib datasheet The percentage (%) of total lysis was calculated as follows: % = [(X -B)/(T-B)] × 100, where B (baseline), a negative control, was corresponding to RBCs incubated with 100 μL of RPMI-1640, and T, a positive control, was corresponding to total RBCs lysis, obtained by incubating cells with 0.1% SDS. X is the OD value of the analysed sample. When indicated, Tangeritin RBCs were resuspended in 60 mM sterile solutions of osmoprotectant in RPMI-1640, to give a final concentration of 30 mM. For these experiments,

a control of hemoglobin precipitation in presence of PEG 4000 and PEG 3000 was realized [43]. PEG 3000 or 4000 were added to a RBCs lysis supernatant obtained after incubation with MFN1032 at a final concentration of 30 mM. No variation of hemoglobin OD value was observed in our conditions during incubation at 37°C for 1 h. Oligonucleotides and polymerase chain reactions MFN1032 and MF37 strains were resuspended in 500 μL sterile ultrapure water. The suspension (2 μL) was then used for PCR amplification of DNA from bacterial colonies. PCR was carried out in a 25 μL reaction volume, in a GeneAmp PCR system 2400 (Perkin-Elmer Corporation, USA). Each reaction mixture contained DNA, 0.25 μL Taq polymerase (Q-Biogen, Illkrirch, France), 2.5 μL corresponding buffer, 2.5 μL primers (20 μM) and 2 μL deoxyribonucleoside triphosphate (2.5 mM). After initial denaturation for three minutes at 95°C, the reaction mixture was subjected to 35 cycles of 1 minute at 94°C, 1 minute at 41°C and two minutes at 72°C, followed by a final 3 minutes extension at 72°C.