Adherence to HeLa cells, and expression of EspA in co-culture relative to pure culture.

(A) Western blot of samples of total cell extracts from pure culture of B. thetaiotaomicron (lane 1), pure culture of EHEC NIPH-11060424 (lane 2), and B. thetaiotaomicron EHEC NIPH-11060424 co-culture (lane 3) using anti-EspA monoclonal antibodies. The arrow represents an unknown protein present in B. thetaiotaomicron. The results shown are representative of three independent biological and technical replicates. (B) The scatter plot shows the adherence of EHEC NIPH-11060424 in co-culture with B. thetaiotaomicron compared to pure culture of EHEC NIPH-11060424 to HeLa cells after 3 and 6 hours of incubation. The data are representative of three independent experiments with 3 technical replicates (n = 9). The vertical line illustrates the median of each group. The Mann-Whitney non-parametric test was used for comparison of groups. P< 0.05 was considered statistically significant.