Figure 5.

Quantification of infectious EV71 particles over a prolonged period in PBS control alone versus PBS with the preformed biofilm of the H. pylori strain NCTC11637. EV71 (2 × 10⁶ plaque-forming units or PFU) was added to PBS only, without biofilm (continuous line graph) or PBS with two-week-old, dehydrated H. pylori biofilm (dotted line graph), and virus viability was quantified daily using the virus plaque assay. H. pylori biofilm could extend EV71 viability for a significantly longer period of time (17 days), i.e., an additional 5 days more than EV71 incubated with PBS alone without biofilm (12 days). Viable virus titer is represented as log PFU per milliliter (PFU/mL), e.g., 1.00+E03 = 10³. Error bars depict standard errors derived from three independent experiments. Statistical analyses were conducted using the two-tailed Student’s t-test. Asterisks (*) denote p-values < 0.05, which were considered statistically significant (for differences from day 7 to day 11).