Coated plates were inoculated with 200 μL per well of bovine serum albumin BSA and incubated for 20 min at 37°C, and then each well was washed 3 times. Aliquots of the bacterial cultures described above were centrifuged

at 13,000 g for 10 min, and the cellular pellets were washed and resuspended in PBS (Dulbecco’s Phosphate Buffered Saline, Sigma-Aldrich). Bacterial suspensions were adjusted to an OD600 of 1, corresponding to approximately 1 × 109 S. aureus cells/mL. One hundred μL of each bacterial suspension was incubated in 3 different wells of the fibronectin-coated plate for 45 min at 37°C with mild shaking. Each well was washed 3 times with PBS

to remove non-adherent selleck inhibitor Talazoparib ic50 bacteria. Adherent bacteria were fixed with glutaraldehyde (2.5% v/v in 0.1 mol/L PBS) for 2 h at 4°C and then stained with crystal violet (0.1% m/v) for 30 min at room temperature. Excess stain was rinsed off with Triton X100 solution (0.2% v/v, H2O), and the plates were dried at room temperature. Bacterial adhesion to fibronectin was assessed spectrophotometrically (Spectrophotometer MR5000, Dynatec) by determining the optical density at 570 nm (OD570). The results were expressed as the mean ± standard deviation based on triplicates. To assess the potential confounding role of antibiotics-induced

reduction of bacterial density in our model, we also searched for a correlation between n-fold changes in bacterial densities and fibronectin binding levels in antibiotics-treated strain 8325-4, as compared to the untreated Lonafarnib purchase control. Cell culture All cell culture reagents were purchased from GIBCO (Paisley, UK). The human osteoblastic cell line MG-63 (LGC Standards, Teddington, UK) was grown in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM) containing 2 mM L-glutamine and 25 mM HEPES, 10% foetal bovine serum (FBS) and 100 U/mL penicillin and streptomycin (culture medium) at 37°C and 5% CO2. Cells were subcultured twice a week and used up to passage 10 after thawing. Adhesion and invasion assay with human osteoblasts MG-63 cells were seeded at 50,000 cells/well in 24-well plates and incubated at 37°C with 5% CO2 for 48 h in culture medium. S. aureus strain 8325-4 was treated with sub-inhibitory concentrations of oxacillin, linezolid or rifampicin as described above and then washed and resuspended in antibiotic-free culture medium. The untreated S. aureus strain DU5883 (isogenic mutant of strain 8325-4 deleted for the genes fnbA/B) was used as a negative control.