FIG. 4.

Inhibition of E. coli with WGA- and MAL-bound fractions. OmpA⁺ E. coli (10⁷ CFU in 100 μl) samples were incubated with either 5 μg (MAL-1) or 10 μg (MAL-2) of MAL-bound HBMEC fractions or deglycosylated MAL-bound fraction (D.Ecgp) for 1 h on ice and then added to HBMEC monolayers. In some experiments, WGA-bound either HBMEC (E44+WGA) or HUVEC (E44+HUVEC) fractions were incubated with OmpA⁺ E. coli strain. The invasion assays were carried out as described in Materials and Methods. Fetuin, a control protein, was used at a 100-μg concentration. The experiments were carried out at least three times in triplicate and expressed as a percentage of control with no protein (10,750 ± 1250 CFU/well). The error bars represent the standard deviation. The inhibition of E. coli invasion by WGA- and MAL-bound fractions and deglycosylated Ecgp was statistically significant compared to the control (P < 0.05 by two-tailed, unpaired t test).