Fig. 1.

A. Fluorometric detection of secreted DNA. Piliated gonococcal strains were grown for 2.5h in liquid culture. Cell-free culture supernatants were collected, and DNA was detected with the fluorescent DNA-binding dye PicoGreen and normalized to total cell protein. MS11 was used as the wild-type (WT) strain and ND500 (ΔGGI in MS11) as the negative control. The results are an average of at least four independent experiments. *p-value<0.003 when compared to wild-type. ^†p-value<0.003 when compared to the respective mutant. ^§Not significantly different than wild type. B. Detection of TraI by Western blot. TraI was produced by wild-type (wt) and mutant strains at approximately the same levels. TraI is not detected in strain ND500, a strain in which the GGI was deleted.