Clinically relevant complications associated with TIVAP biofilms.

<p>(A) Peripheral blood was harvested on day 4 (D4) and day 8 (D8) post-inoculation and plated on LB agar (E.c., <i>E. coli</i> n = 10 or P.a., <i>P. aeruginosa</i> n = 18) or TSB agar (S.a., <i>S. aureus</i> n = 14 or S.e., <i>S. epidermidis</i> n = 5) plates for CFU/mL. Bacteria were cleared by day 8 in most rats except for a few that suffered from systemic infection and died. Each dot represents one animal and cross (†) signifies the dead animal. (B) Organs were aseptically removed after sacrificing animals on day 10. Graph includes only rats that suffered from systemic infection and died. No bacteria were detected in the case of <i>S. epidermidis</i> (<i>S. e.</i>, n = 5), whereas 10% rats suffered from systemic infection and died due to <i>E. coli</i> (<i>E. c.</i>, n = 1/10) or ∼30% due to <i>P. aeruginosa</i> (<i>P. a.</i>, n = 6/18) and <i>S. aureus</i> (<i>S. a.</i>, n = 5/14) biofilms associated with TIVAP. Data are presented as box-and-whisker plots as previously described in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0037281#s2" target="_blank">material and methods</a>.