Figure 3.

Impact of clinically relevant antibiotics on luminescence. Bacteria were inoculated with serum and 100 times the mean inhibitory concentration of levofloxacin or piperacillin and tazobactam, representative members of two classes of broad-spectrum antibiotics likely to be encountered in clinical samples. Levofloxacin produced bacterial killing much faster than serum, whereas piperacillin and tazobactam did not accelerate killing beyond that seen with complement alone. Results represent means ±SD of three to five replicates. Note that the SD bars in these plots are largely obscured by value icons.