Fig. 3

Immunogold-labelling for fibrinogens from the in vitro biofilm formation on stainless-steel pins. Stainless-steel pins were placed in the flow chamber containing TSB + HP media and inoculated with UAMS-1 ∆spa S. aureus, and incubated for 9 h at a flow rate of 0.2 ml/min at 37 °C. Afterwards, the pins were harvested and processed for immunogold-labelling. Representative SEM images of two independent experiments are shown. The biofilm in the upper panels were obtained at 10,000x, and at 20,000x in the lower panels. The network fibres in the matrix of the biofilm were coated by gold particles (white arrows), which directly attach to specific antibodies of the fibrinogen molecules