Fig. 6: Effects of co-cultures on antibiotic resistance and virulence. | Nature Communications

Fig. 6: Effects of co-cultures on antibiotic resistance and virulence.

From: Cross-protection and cross-feeding between Klebsiella pneumoniae and Acinetobacter baumannii promotes their co-existence

Fig. 6

a Antibiotic cross-protection assay in 512 μg/mL cefotaxime. A + K denotes AB6870155 and KP6870155 co-cultures at a 30:70 ratio respectively. Inset of MacConkey agar plate shows KP (KP6870155) colonies appearing red due to K. pneumoniae β-galactosidase activity; AB (AB6870155) lacks this enzyme and appears as white colonies. b Growth of K. pneumoniae KP6870155 in cefotaxime only (+ CEF) and cefotaxime + sulbactam (+ CEF:SUL at 2:1) as measured by optical density (OD600). “KP only” represents K. pneumoniae KP6870155 grown in wells without sharing media with A. baumannii AB6870155 while “KP ( + AB insert)” represents KP6870155 physically separated from AB6870155 via a Millicell hanging insert and able to share media (n = 3). Data are presented as mean values + /− SEM. Significance was measured by paired Student’s t-test (two-tailed) where *represents a p < 0.05 (p = 0.03) and ns (not significant) represents a p > 0.05. c Kaplan–Meier curves of single injected AB6870155 (AB) and KP6870155 (KP) and co-injected (A + K) at a 1:1 ratio in G. mellonella (p-value based on log-rank test); PBS only controls had 100% survival (overlap with AB curve). d schematic representation created with BioRender and ChemDraw (v22.0.0) of A. baumannii AB6870155 and K. pneumoniae KP6870155 interactions. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Back to article page