Viability of Met-5A and primary mesothelial cells exposed to S. epidermidis and lipoteichoic acid.

Confluent Met-5A mesothelial cells were exposed to 10⁷ cfu/mL of two S. epidermidis reference isolates (ATCC^® 14990 and ATCC^® 12228), five S. epidermidis clinical isolates from PD peritonitis patients (C015, C016, C017, C018, C019) and 10 μg/mL lipoteichoic acid (LTA) for 1 hour at 37°C. Confluent primary mesothelial cells were exposed to 10⁷ cfu/mL of the clinical S. epidermidis isolate C016. Viability was determined using flow cytometry and a LIVE/DEAD^® Fixable Near-IR Dead Cell Stain, and data reported as the mean percentage of cell death across a minimum of biological triplicates (error bars are standard deviation). There was no statistically significant (p < 0.05) difference in the percent of cell death between any of the samples and the media control.