Fig 4. Collagen-binding and inhibition assays.

Binding (A) and inhibition of binding by heparin sodium salt (B) to immobilized collagen of selected natural Agg+ isolates and strains with heterologously expressed AggLb (including control strains). Lower panels show graphical presentation of results expressed as normalized A₅₇₀ values. Error bars show standard deviations. Asterisk indicates a significant difference (p<0.001) between aggregating strains and their non-aggregating derivatives, as well as for aggregating strains untreated and treated with the inhibitor.