Data are means ± SD of 3 independent experiments. *P < 0.05; ΔlytSR vs. WT; ΔlytSR(pNS-lytSR) vs. ΔlytSR(pNS-lytSR). We further examined cell viability inside biofilm of 1457ΔlytSR and the wild-type strain by using a fluorescence-based Live/Dead staining method. With an appropriate mixture (1:1, m/m) of the SYTO 9 (green) and PI (red), bacteria with intact cell membranes were stained fluorescent green, whereas bacteria with damaged membranes were stained fluorescent red. Significantly decreased level of red fluorescence was observed inside biofilm of 1457ΔlytSR, comparing with that inside biofilm of the wild-type

strain, as shown in Figure 8. Complementation of 1457ΔlytSR with plasmid pNS-lytSR restored the level of red fluorescence to that observed inside biofilm of the wild-type strain (Figure 8C, D). A quantitative method based on measuring the red/green fluorescence ratio AZD4547 was 4SC-202 price carried out to determine the relative cell viability inside biofilm. The percentage of dead cells inside 24-hour-old biofilms of 1457ΔlytSR

and the wild-type strain were 6% and 15% respectively, as shown in Figure 9. Inside the biofilm of lytSR complementation strain, the percentage of dead cells was restored nearly to the wild-type level. Figure 8 Confocal photomicrographs of 24-hour-old biofilms. Biofilms containing S. epidermidis 1457 strains wild-type (A), ΔlytSR (B), ΔlytSR(pNS-lytSR) (C) and ΔlytSR(pNS) (D) were visualized by using the

live/dead viability stain (SYTO9/PI). Green fluorescent cells are viable, whereas red fluorescent cells have a compromised cell membrane, as indicative of dead cells. Scale bars = 5 μm. The result is a stack of images at approximately 0.3 μm depth increments and represents one of the three experiments. Figure 9 Quantitative analysis of bacteria Baf-A1 order cell death in 24-hour-old biofilms. Live/dead stained biofilm cells were scraped from the dish and dispersed by pipetting. The integrated intensities of the green (535 nm) and red (625 nm) emission of suspensions excited at 485 nm were measured and the green/red fluorescence ratios (RatioR/G) were calculated. The percentage of dead cells inside biofilm was determined by comparison to the standard curve of RatioR/G versus percentage of dead cells. Data are means ± SEM of 3 independent experiments. *P < 0.05; ΔlytSR vs. WT; ΔlytSR(pNS-lytSR) vs. ΔlytSR(pNS-lytSR). Transcriptional profiling of 1457ΔlytSR strain To investigate the regulatory role of LytSR, we used custom-made S. epidermidis GeneChips to perform a transcriptional profile analysis of the wild type and 1457ΔlytSR strains. Two criteria including 2-fold or greater change in expression level and P < 0.05 were employed to select the genes with significantly different expression. It was found that expression of 164 genes was affected by lytSR mutation, in which 123 were upregulated and 41 were downregulated.