FIG. 6.

Competition experiments. Synthetic peptides P1, P2, and P3, corresponding to either parts of the A4⁺¹⁶ fragment (P1 [•] and P2 [▪]) or the B⁻¹⁶CD fragment (P3 [▴]) (for precise localizations, see Fig. 1), were used to compete for the adhesion of either A4⁺¹⁶ (left panels) or FnBPA (right panels) to immobilized fibrinogen (A) or fibronectin (B). Coated plates were first incubated with serial twofold dilutions of either competitor (starting at 32 μg/ml) before the addition of 5 × 10⁷ CFU of the recombinant bacteria. Experiments were done at least in triplicate. Results are expressed with the standard deviation as a percentage of the adhesion achieved without a competitor.