Fig. 2. Fungal-bacterial interactions within ex vivo wound model.

Fungal-bacterial biofilms grown using both staggered and simultaneous inoculation models. Microbes were grown for up to 48 h in 6 mm excisional wounds on 12 mm punch biopsies of human skin suspended in a DMEM-agarose gel at 37 °C, 5% CO₂. A Relative abundance (full scale and zoomed) of C. albicans, C. freundii, and S. aureus across priority effect models. Stacked bars calculated from means of CFU data shown in (C–E). B Summary of CFU differences between priority effects models and time-matched mono-cultures. Data points show median differences of microbes in co-infections to mono-infections with 95% confidence intervals calculated from CFU data shown in (C–E) for each microbe using the Mann–Whitney U test. Note that the non-parametric confidence intervals are asymmetric around the median and that C. freundii and S. aureus confidence intervals that do not include 0 are not significantly different due to multiple comparisons corrections. C C. albicans CFUs across inoculation conditions. D C. freundii CFUs across inoculation conditions. E S. aureus CFUs across inoculation conditions. Each data point represents one replicate bisect of a biopsy; horizontal bars show means of ≥6 replicates from ≥2 skin donors. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.