Figure 9.
Adhesion to Caco-2 cells. Cell counts of viable L. fermentum MBC2 (A) and LGG (B) adhering on differentiated Caco-2 cells co-cultured with 1 × 108 (a) or 1 × 109 (b) bacterial colony forming units (CFU)/well. Grey columns refer to the initial bacterial load, while white columns refer to adhering bacteria recovered at the end of co-incubation. Data are reported as log of bacterial CFU recovered after plating. Columns represent the mean ± SD of two independent experiments, each performed in triplicate. Statistical analysis was performed by one-way ANOVA, followed by post-hoc Tukey honestly significant difference (HSD) test. Asterisks indicate significant differences (*** p < 0.001).