Figure 5.

Impact of extracellular purified proteases on dispersal of established biofilms. Biofilms were allowed to form with the LAC protease-deficient mutant for 24 h before adding purified proteases in concentrations ranging from 250 to 16 nmol/L. The impact of each protease on dispersal of the established biofilm was then assessed 24 h later as previously described (Beenken et al. 2010). “C” indicates the control in which no exogenous protease was added. Asterisks indicate the lowest concentration of each protease at which a statistically significant difference was observed relative to this control.