Figure 4

Effect of triclosan on growth, viability and fitness pFab transformants. (A) Growth curves for DH5α/pUC19 and DH5α/pFab cultures grown with and without selection. Growth rates were determined from the exponential phase, indicated by arrows. (B) Reduced fitness with fabI over-expression and its suppression by triclosan. Growth rates of pFab and pUCFA clones in LB and LBA, respectively, were calculated relative to DH5α/pUC19 in LBA. (C) Flow cytometric determination of dead cell numbers, as a measure of cell toxicity, in DH5α/pFab cultures grown in the presence of a range of triclosan concentrations. (D) Growth competition between DH5α and DH5α/pUC19 or DH5α/pFab. The log10 ratio of plasmid-bearing cells to total number of cells against time represents the rate of plasmid loss in mixed cell populations. The data is representative of two independent experiments.