Fig. 3. RNA from the surrounding milieu affects biofilm formation.

a Nucleic acids were isolated from BHI medium via ethanol precipitation, treated with DNase I and RNase A or left untreated (Control), and detected on an agarose gel. A white arrowhead denotes RNA. b The presence of RNA identified by RNA-seq was confirmed by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction using RNA purified from the BHI medium as a template and primers specific for the fragments identified through RNA-seq (Supplementary Table 1). + added, − not added. c The effects of the RNA purified from BHI medium (BHI–RNA) on the formation of MR10 biofilms in Roswell Park Memorial Institute medium supplemented with 1% glucose. The data are presented as the mean and standard deviation (error bar) of relative biofilm biomass from triplicate experiments. The biofilm biomass in the absence of BHI–RNA was defined as 100%. **P < 0.01.