The indicator strains were representative strains of URTIs including AOM pathogens: S. pyogenes group (S. pyogenes 2812A serotype M18, S. pyogenes Spy35370 serotype M1 and F222 serotype M2), Haemophilus influenzae 3ATF, S. aureus 10F, Escherichia coli 12I, Pseudomonas aeruginosa 115, S. salivarius ATCC13419, and B. catarrhalis 120, S. pneumoniae group LY2835219 concentration including three not-typed clinical isolates of

S. pneumoniae (11ATN, 22ATN and 148) and three S. pneumoniae serotype 19A (BT S. pneumoniae; CR S. pneumoniae; GC S. pneumoniae), which are responsible for cases of pediatric meningitis in Sicily, Italy. All S. pneumoniae used were resistance to erythromycin, clindamycin, and susceptibility to penicillin and ampicillin. All strains used as indicator strains in the deferred antagonism test were clinical strains except S. salivarius ATCC13419. The BLIS production was also tested using a deferred antagonism test on Trypticase Soy Yeast Extract Calcium agar (Trypticase Soy Broth; Oxoid) + 2% Yeast extract (Oxoid) + 1.5 agar (Oxoid) + 0.1% CaCO3. Total bacterial DNA was extracted in agarose plugs as described before (Santagati et al., 2009). After

digestion with the SacII enzyme (TaKaRa BIO), macro-restriction fragments were resolved in a 1% agarose gel using 0.5× tris-borate-ethylene Poziotinib purchase diamine tetra-acetic acid buffer (BioRad) at 14 °C. The CHEF DRPFGE (BioRad) system was used, and switch and run times were 1″ to 15″ for 20 h, with a voltage gradient of 6 V cm−2. The macrorestriction fragments were visualized by a blue-light trans-illuminator (Safe Imager Invitrogen) after staining with 1× SYBR Green (SYBR Safe DNA gel staining Invitrogen) in TBE0.5×. The macrorestriction fragments were transferred from the gel to a nylon Hybond N+ membrane, (Amersham International UK) in a downward direction using a Vacuum blotter 785 (BioRad) and denaturing solutions (NaOH 0.5 M/NaCl 1.5 M). DNA fragments were immobilized by UV radiation (Ultraviolet Crosslinker, Amersham). The hybridization assays

with sagA, smeZ-2, speB, speC, speJ, speG, prtF, and sof probes were performed using the ‘ECL Direct Nucleic Acid Labeling and Detection System’ (RPN 3000 Amersham), following the protocol provided with the kit. The probes were obtained by PCR from the S. pyogenes SF370 and S. pyogenes 2812A genome and purified with Farnesyltransferase the QIAquick PCR purification kit (Qiagen) using the primers described in Table 1. For all bacteriocin producer strains, the presence of plasmids was investigated by Plasmid Midi Kit (Qiagen) according to the manufacturer’s instructions, preceded by one lysis step with 20 mg mL−1 lysozyme solution and incubated at 37 °C for 30 min. In addition, the chromosomal versus plasmid localization was evaluated by the I-CeuI method, as described previously (Liu et al., 1993). Streptococcus salivarius K12 was used as positive control. Total genomic DNA was digested overnight with I-CeuI and was subjected to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) as previously described.