Fig. 6: Spores produced by the 630Δerm and R20291 strains have a cytopathic effect on epithelial cell lines.
From: Spores of Clostridioides difficile are toxin delivery vehicles
a Immunostaining of monolayers of Vero and HT29 cells. The cells were exposed to 5 × 106 spores purified from sporulating cultures of the indicated strains. Following incubation for 24 h with spores, the cells were immunostained with Texas Red-Phalloidin to detect cell rounding. Scale bar, 10 μm. b Spores cause a dose-dependent cytopathic effect. Monolayers of Vero cells were exposed to the indicated number of spores (in CFU/ml) purified from each of the strains specified at the bottom. Following incubation, the cells were examined by phase contrast microscopy and the percentage of cell rounding scored for 220 cells (n). The experiment was performed in triplicate and error bars indicate the standard error.
