Figure 3.

Invasion by no spin and spin inoculation (a), invasion and intracellular persistence of P. gingivalis within HD-MVEC maintained under constant antibiotic (b) or pulse antibiotic (c) treatment. (a) The proportion of bacterial inoculates enumerated from HD-MVEC cell lysates collected at 2.5 h post-inoculation (n = 4). (b) P. gingivalis inoculation was performed by centrifugation and antibiotics were added to HD-MVEC cultures at 1.5 h post-inoculation and maintained until cell harvest. Percent at 2.5 h post-inoculation represents the mean proportion of inoculate that was enumerated from HD-MVEC cell lysates at 2.5 h post-inoculation. Values at 6 and 24 h post-inoculation were determined by dividing the CFU obtained at each time point by the average CFU obtained at 2.5 h post-inoculation (i.e. invaded cells). Values represent the mean ± SD (n = 6) from two independent experiments. (c) P. gingivalis inoculation was performed by centrifugation. At 1.5 h PI, HD-MVEC were treated with antibiotics for 1 h. Values are expressed as the mean log CFU ± SD (n = 3)