TABLE 2.

Soluble NSP from plantain inhibits epithelial adhesion of C. difficile spores and vegetative cells.

C. difficile strain	% reduction in spore adhesion with plantain NSP a	% reduction in C. difficile adhesion with plantain NSP a
98011	30.3 ± 5.2*	93.4 ± 1.9***
108536	33.8 ± 6.9*	92.6 ± 4.3***
108526	27.9 ± 5.4**	86.7 ± 2.0***
98220	29.9 ± 8.9**	78.9 ± 3.1***
1342	32.8 ± 14.9**	97.9 ± 1.5***

^aReduction in adhesion of purified C. difficile isolate spores and vegetative cells to Caco-2 cells expressed as a percentage of untreated controls, set as 100%. Caco-2 cells were pre-treated with 10 mg/ml plantain non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) for 30 min before inoculation (1 × 10⁷ CFU/ml; multiplicity of infection, MOI 100). Significant differences from untreated controls, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001 (data expressed as mean ± SEM for N = 2–4 experiments, n = 3 replicates; Kruskal-Wallis test).