Figure 3.

Protection by different shells offered to planktonic B. breve ATCC15700 in suspension against exposure to SGF (pH 2) or tetracycline. The horizontal bands represent CFU/mL ± SD after exposure of unencapsulated B. breve to PBS. (A) Survival of B. breve in suspension after 30 min of exposure to SGF (pH 2) for 30 min, expressed as CFUs. Shells have been removed before agar plating. The absence of data represents less than 10² CFU/mL. (B) Survival of B. breve in suspension after 3 h of exposure to tetracycline (10 μg/mL), expressed as CFUs. Shells have been removed before agar plating. Error bars represent the SEM over three experiments with separately grown bacteria. * indicates statistically significant differences (one-way ANOVA, followed by Tukey’s test for multi-comparison) between unencapsulated and encapsulated B. breve. Significance was accepted at p < 0.05. The absence of significance is indicated as “ns”.