Staphylococcus epidermidis s epidermidis

For the synthesis of the microgels: N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM, 99%) and 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA, 98%, Aldrich, St. Quentin Fallavier, France) were used as monomers. N,N’-Methylenbis(acrylamide) (MBA, Aldrich), was used as the crosslinking agent and ammonium persulfate (APS, Aldrich) was the initiator of the reaction. Iodomethane (Aldrich, 99%) and 1-iodobutane (Aldrich, 99%) were employed as the alkylating agent. Anhydrous dimethylformamide (DMF) (99.5% purity) and hexane (95%) was supplied by Sigma Aldrich, as used as received.
For the microbiological assays: Sodium chloride (NaCl, 0.9%, BioXtra, Steinheim, Germany, suitable for cell cultures) and phosphate buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4) were purchased from Aldrich. The microbial growth media, BBL^TM Mueller Hinton broth was obtained from Becton, Dickinson and Company (Madrid, Spain). Sheep blood (5%) Columbia Agar plates were acquired from BioMérieux (Madrid, Spain). Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus, ATCC 29213) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis, ATCC 12228), were used as bacterial strains, and the yeast Candida parapsilosis (C. parapsilosis, ATCC 22109) was used as fungal strain and purchased from Oxoid (Wesel, Germany).

Freeze dried S. aureus (ATCC 25923), Staphylococcus epidermidis (S. epidermidis) (ATCC 12228), Escherichia coli (E. coli) (ATCC 13115), E. coli* (ATCC 15597), Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) (ATCC 29212), and Enterococcus casseliflavus (E. casseliflavus) (ATCC 9199) were purchased from American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and revived according to ATCC protocols. ATCC bacteria culture stocks were stored at −80 °C in a cryomedium to glycerol ratio of 3:2. When needed, bacteria cultures were inoculated into the brain hearth infusion (BHI) liquid media and incubated at 37 °C.