FIGURE 7.

Bacterial adhesion and aggregation on 96-well polystyrene plates in the wild-type parent, and the tol-pal, ybgC, ybgF, and ompA mutants (A). Bacterial adhesion and aggregation were represented as A₅₉₅ values normalized to OD₆₀₀ of 1. Data plotted are the means of three biological replicates, error bars indicate the ranges, ^*P < 0.01. Asterisks denote significance for values relative to the wild-type control. Fluorescent images of aggregated UPEC cells within bladder epithelial cells (HTB-9) (B). Bacteria carrying a Green fluorescence protein (GFP) expression plasmid, pTurboGFP-B and HTB-9 stained with rhodamine-phalloidin were imaged as, respectively, green and red fluorescent colors on the microscopy using 60× objective. The experiment was repeated twice and similar results were obtained.