Fig. 4

Determination of rates of excisants during serial subculturing of MRSA N315. a An overnight culture grown in TSB at 37 °C was used to inoculate a fresh 10 mL TSB culture with dilutions of 1/100 or 1/10,000. The new culture was allowed to grow overnight and used to reinoculate a new fresh culture, and this was repeated for 9 passages. DNA extractions and qPCR were performed at cycles 1, 5 and 9 as indicated. b Variation of the frequency of excisants over the passages. Error bars represent the average ± SD of three independent measurements performed in three independent cultures. Statistical differences were assessed by the unpaired t test and asterisks represent statistically significative results (p < 0.05)