Fig. 1

Time-kill curves of extracellular S. aureus exposed to cephalexin and/or macrophages. Time-kill curves of different initial bacterial inoculum sizes of 10⁴ (a), 10⁵ (b), 10⁶ (c) and 10⁷ (d) CFU/mL exposed to different concentrations of cephalexin in the absence (hatched lines) or presence of macrophages (M, unbroken lines) at a density of 10⁶ cells/mL. Cephalexin concentrations are expressed as multiples of the MIC (cephalexin MIC = 8 μg/mL). Each symbol represents the mean of results from three experiments, n = 3. Error bars show SD. The limit of quantification is 10 CFU/mL and is shown by the black line; the bactericidal effects are shown by the coloured lines