Fig. 1

Migration on soft agar and cytotoxicity of the V. vulnificus strains. a and c HeLa cells were coincubated with the bacteria in a 96-well microplate at a moi of 10 for 4 h, and the cytotoxicity was then estimated by LDH assay. The percentage of cytotoxicity relative to that of strain YJ016 a or CECT4999 c is indicated. n = 3. b and d Bacterial culture were inoculated onto a 0.3% soft agar plate and incubated at 37 °C for 8 h to show the migration of each strain. YJ016: wild-type (biotype 1); NY303–2: YJ016ΔvplΔvvhA; NY303: spontaneous attenuated mutant derived from NY303–2; YH01: YJ016Δlrp; YH02: NY303–2Δlrp; YH03: YH01(plrp); YH04: YH02(plrp); YH05: NY303(plrp); YH06: YJ016 lrp*; CH08: NY303–2 lrp*; CS9133: wild-type (biotype 1); CH09: CS9133Δlrp; CECT4999: wild-type (biotype 2); CH10: CECT4999Δlrp. Data in a were analyzed by one-way ANOVA along with Tukey’s test. n = 3. Bars that show no significant difference from each other are labeled with the same letter, and those showing significant difference (P < 0.05) are labeled with different letters. Data in b were analyzed by paired Student’s t-test. ***: P < 0.001