Figure 4

Correlating HOCl-induced membrane permeability and CFU viability. Bacteria were exposed to reagent HOCl in vitro to determine the effect of the oxidant on membrane integrity as measured by the BacLight Bacterial Viability and Counting Kit (Molecular Probes). Concentrations of HOCl used were based on the amounts necessary to eradicate CFU viability as assessed in the previous experiments. In general, bacterial membranes remain intact at concentrations beyond that required to inhibit CFU formation and kill the organism. Under these conditions, PsA, SA, and KP were killed at statistically lower concentrations of HOCl than were required to produce the same degree of membrane permeabilization. Membrane permeabilization by HOCl in BC and EC correlated with loss of CFU viability. Solid circles and lines: membrane integrity. Open circles and dotted lines: bacterial viability. Both parameters were expressed as percent relative to oxidant-free controls. P-values represent linear regression of the raw data values from membrane permeability versus CFU viability. Values less than 0.05 were considered significant and denote correlation among the parameters; values greater than 0.05 indicate independence of the parameters. Error bars represent standard deviation of at least n = 3 experiments.