Since extracellular ATP level was found to decrease during the stationary phase of growth (Figure 3), we determined if the extracellular ATP is beneficial to bacteria at stationary

phase and if ATP Selleck Combretastatin A4 supplement could enhance the JNJ-26481585 chemical structure bacterial survival. Salmonella and E. coli were cultured for 7 days and exogenous ATP was added to the cultures. We chose to use 10 μM or 100 μM to supplement bacterial culture since the ATP depletion assays showed that Salmonella and E. coli depletes ATP at approximately 5 μM/hr (Figure 5A and B) and high concentrations of ATP would allow ATP level in the bacterial cultures to stay elevated for an extended period of time. Survival of bacteria was determined by the ratio of bacterial CFU/mL after 7 days

of incubation to that after 1 day of incubation (Figure 6). Our results showed that an ATP supplement increased the survival of the bacterial strains tested. The dosage response varied in different strains. Salmonella responded best to 10 μM ATP, while E. coli responded equally well to 10 μM and 100 μM ATP. The results suggest that extracellular ATP can affect bacterial survival (Figure 6). Figure 6 ATP supplementation increases the stationary survival of bacteria. E. coli K12, Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis (SE) or Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium (ST) was cultured in M9 minimal medium or M9 minimal medium supplemented with 10 μM or 100 μM of ATP. The rate of survival was determined by comparing bacterial CFU/mL after 7 days of incubation to that after 1 day of incubation. The experiment Alanine-glyoxylate transaminase was performed three times and results are from a representative experiment performed

in triplicate. LY2603618 Error bars represent standard deviation. * p < 0.05, Student’s t-test. Extracellular ATP was detected in several Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacterial species In addition to Gram-negative bacterial species E. coli and Salmonella, other bacterial species were tested for the presence of ATP in the culture medium to determine if the phenomenon is limited to Enterobacteriaceae or is present in more bacterial families such as Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus. Clinical isolates of various human pathogenic bacterial species were tested for the presence of ATP in culture medium during their growth in vitro and the ATP levels in the culture supernatant were determined. The peak values of the ATP concentration in the culture medium and the incubation time when the ATP levels peaked are listed in Table 5. ATP was detected in the culture supernatant of all bacterial strains tested. Although the levels and peak time points varied from strain to strain, all bacterial strains displayed the presence of growth phase dependent ATP in the culture supernatant (Table 5). This result suggests that the presence of extracellular ATP is not restricted to Enterobacteriaceae and instead can be detected in many bacterial families.