Fig 3. Attachment capacity of P. aeruginosa PAO1 reference strains and isogenic mutants.

The attachment capacity of reference strains, mutants and complemented mutants (see S9A Table) was assayed after 20 min at 37°C in our glass wool system (see materials and methods). Only the attachment capacity of P. aeruginosa PAO1 was presented for reason of clarity, the other reference strains (PAO1-L and MPAO1) showed results similar to those obtained for PAO1. In the same manner, the attachment capacities of the different mutants were not altered by introducing the empty plasmid pUCP20 or pUCP22. For each of the mutants presented herein, the complemented strain displayed an attachment capacity ranging from 80% to 140% of the reference strain (see S8 Table). The results corresponded to the average of 3 independent experiments (bar = SD).