In families known to group together enzymes of differing substrate specificity, the “”related to”" annotation could be upgraded to “”candidate”" by using a broad activity descriptor, for instance β-glycosidase instead of β-mannosidase. Biofilm production To test biofilm production overnight cultures were used to inoculate liquid MSgg medium (100 mmol l-1 MOPS pH 7.0, 0.5% AZD1152 mouse glycerol, 0.5% glutamate, 5 mm potassium

phosphate pH 7.0, 50 μg ml-1 tryptophan, 50 mg ml-1 phenylalanine, 2 mmol l-1 MgCl2, 0.7 mmol l-1 CaCl2, 50 μmol l-1 FeCl3, 50 μmol l-1 MnCl2, 2 μmol l-1 thiamine, 1 μmol l-1 ZnCl2) [5] and cells grown at 37°C in static conditions for up to 48 h. Cells forming a solid layer at the liquid-air interface were considered as biofilm producers. To quantify biofilm formation, bacteria were grown in MSgg medium at 37°C for 3 days in 6-wells selleck compound polystyrene microtiter plates. Culture

medium was removed and wells washed with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS). The solid biofilm layer was stained for 30 min with two ml 0.1% (wt/vol) crystal violet in an isopropanol-methanol-PBS solution (1:1:18 [vol/vol]). Wells were then washed again with dH2O and air-dried (about 30 min). The crystal violet bound to the wells was extracted with 2 ml ethanol-acetone (80:20) and the optical density (OD) of each well was measured at 570 nm. Mucin adhesion and degradation assays Mucin adhesion assays were performed as previously described [Borja et al. 2010]. 100 μl of a mucin (from porcine stomach type III; Sigma-Aldrich) solution in PBS (10 mg/ml) was 3-MA concentration immobilized on the wells of 96-well polystyrene microtiter plates for one hour at 37°C, followed by overnight incubation at 4°C. Wells were washed twice with 200 μl of PBS and incubated with 20 g/l bovine serum albumin (BSA) (Sigma-Aldrich), for 2 h at 4°C. Non-bound BSA was eliminated by extensive Amino acid washes with PBS, and 100 μl of bacterial cell suspensions (approximately 109 CFU/ml), was added to the wells and incubated at 37°C for 1 h. Wells were washed five times with 200 μl of sterile citrate buffer to remove unbound

bacteria. Two hundred μl of 0.5% (v/v) Triton X-100 was added to eliminate attached bacteria. The content of each well was thoroughly mixed with a micropipette, and 100 μl of the resulting suspensions plated to obtain the CFU/well. Results are the average of three independent experiments. Mucin degradation assays were performed as previously reported [Fakhry et al., 2009]. Cells were grown overnight and spotted on Medium B plates: tryptone (Oxoid) 7.5 g/l; casitone (Difco) 7.5 g/l; yeast extract (Oxoid) 3.0 g/l; meat extract (Merck) 5.0 g/l; NaCl (BDH) 5.0 g/l; K2HPO-3H2O (BDH) 3.0 g/l; KH2PO (BDH) 0.5 g/l; MgSO-7H2O (BDH) 0.5 g/l; cysteine HCl (Sigma) 0.5 g/l; resazurin (BDH) 0.002. g/l; D-(1)-glucose (BDH) 10 or 30 g/l, purified hog gastric mucin (HGM) 3 g/l and agarose (Sigma) 1.5 g/100 ml.