Fig. 5.
An in-frame deletion of wbtJ recapitulates the biofilm and O-Ag phenotypes observed in natural variants and is rescued by complementation. (a) Biofilm formation of the LVS wild-type (black bar), Isolate 15 (grey bars) and a ΔwbtJ (red bars) was assayed by crystal violet staining after 1 day of growth in CDM. Biofilm was also assayed in these strains for complementation studies including the vector only (pMP814) or +wbtJ (pKM43; thatched bars) under these conditions. Significance was assessed using linear mixed effects model to compare the LVS wild-type to Isolate #15 and ΔwbtJ or strains containing pMP814 (vector only) to the isogenic strain harboring pKM43 (+wbtJ complement); ****P <0.0001. (b) Western blot analysis was performed to assess the LPS profile. Samples were suspended to an equal OD600, lysed, and separated on SDS-PAGE gels. After transferring to a membrane, blots were exposed to α-LPS (mAb FB11; top) and α-GroEL (bottom) was used as a loading control.