FIG 5.

External addition of GAG potentiates persistence in the isolate PD-104. (A) Addition of GAG does not change the MIC of the isolates. (B) Representative merges of 87 photos to cover the whole well of broth dilution assays. The fungal material was stained with CFW. Representative wells of PD-104 with or without GAG at 2× the MIC are shown. Counting of germinated conidia/short hyphae in entire wells of 2× (left) and 3× (right) MIC of broth dilution assays. External addition of GAG significantly increased the number of germlings in PD-104 from 1.09 to 2.80% (P = 0.0267) at 2× MIC and from 0.41 to 0.75% (P = 0.038), as assessed using a two-tailed unpaired t test. Two independent experiments with three technical replicates were performed. The graphs represent the means and SD. (C) Plating of the entire content of wells containing 4 μg/mL of voriconazole shows that external addition of GAG significantly increased the number of viable PD-104 cells that can be recovered 48 h after inoculation (P = 0.0437, one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons). Two independent experiments with three biological replicates were performed. The graph represents the means and SD. Persister isolates are labeled with an asterisk (*).