To confirm that the inocula contained or lacked the kan cassette and that

the kan cassette was not lost Sorafenib datasheet by the mutant during the course of infection, individual colonies from the inocula, surface cultures and biopsy specimens were picked, suspended in freezing medium and frozen in 96-well plates. If available, thirty colonies from an individual specimen were scored for susceptibility to kanamycin on kanamycin-containing chocolate agar plates as described [31]. Recombinant fusion protein construction and expression The ompP4 ORF, without the signal peptide sequence, was amplified from 35000HP genomic DNA using synthetic primers (5’-TGTACTTATCATCATAATCATAAGCAT-3’ and 5’-TGAATAACGAGTTAATCCTAACAAAA-3’) and then cloned into the pCR-XL-TOPO vector using the TOPO XL Cloning Kit (Invitrogen Corp, San Diego, Calif). The fragment was excised using EcoRI and then cloned into pRSETB (Invitrogen). Transformation of recombinant plasmid into BL21(DE3)pLysS cells allowed for fusion protein expression. Recombinant OmpP4 was expressed in inclusion bodies and was purified under conditions using urea following find more the QIAexpressionist System (Qiagen, Inc, Valencia, Calif). Stepwise dialysis with decreasing

urea concentrations was used to remove urea from the recombinant proteins and then concentrated with a Centricon-10 microconcentrator (Amicon Corp., Beverly, Mass). Purified recombinant OmpP4 was used to inoculate BALB/c mice to produce polyclonal antibodies (Harlan Bioproducts for Science) that were used in bactericidal and phagocytosis assays. Immune serum bactericidal assays 35000HP was grown for 16–18 h from a freezer stock on chocolate agar plates at 33°C with 5% CO2 and harvested in phosphate-buffered saline. After vortexing for 30 sec, cells were suspended

in GC medium and diluted to a final concentration of approximately 103 to 104 CFU/ml. Bactericidal assays were performed in 96-well plates. Each well received 50 μl 35000HP and 10 μl (or 10%) of heat-inactivated NMS or HMS-P4 and brought to 65 μl with GC broth. Plates were incubated for 30 min at 33°C with Edoxaban 5% CO2. Then, 25 μl of either active or heat-inactivated normal human serum, which was used as the complement source, was added and the plates were incubated for an additional 60 min at 33°C with 5% CO2. Bacteria were quantified by plating 100 μl from each well onto chocolate agar and incubating for 48 h at 33°C with 5% CO2. Heat-inactivated hyperimmune pig serum collected after multiple inoculations with H. ducreyi, which has been shown to promote bactericidal activity against H. ducreyi, was used as a positive control (kindly provided by Thomas Kawula, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) [27]. Data were reported as percent survival in active NHS compared to that in heat-inactivated-NHS. Each experiment was repeated three times, and arithmetic mean and standard deviation of the percent survival were calculated.