Fig. 3.

NTHi enhanced pneumococcal survival. (a). Enhanced pneumococcal survivals were observed in co-cultures with different strains. Both NTHi strains 86028NP and 2019 enhanced TIGR4 survival at 24 hour point. NTHi strains also enhanced other pneumococci D39 survival. The cfu counts represented total viable cells including planktonic and biofilm cells. The bacterial culture and viable cell counting were performed four times independently. **: P<0.01. (b). Co-culturing with NTHi didn’t alter the growth pattern of SP up to the stationary phase. The amount of viable TIGR4 cells of TIGR4 alone culture declined rapidly after 16 hours due to the autolysis and/or fratricide but there were much more viable SP cells in the co-cultured group than SP alone (P<0.01). The cfu counts were average results of 4 independent experiments.