Protein A-Carboxylate beads (0.981 μm diameter) were purchased from Polysciences Inc. (Warrington, PA). The beads were coupled with MAb 3/1 or 26/1 by incubation of 1 mL of cell culture supernatant containing 15 μg IgG3 mL−1 with 108 beads for LY294002 research buy 2 h at 4 °C at 150 r.p.m. on an orbital shaker. After washing three times by centrifugation at 10 000 g for 2 min with RPMI 1640 containing 40 μg 

bovine serum albumin (BSA) mL−1 (Sigma-Aldrich, Munich, Germany), the beads were resuspended in 1 mL of the same medium. Legionella pneumophila was inoculated in YE broth and incubated at 37 °C on an orbital shaker at 300 r.p.m. for 12 and 24 h to obtain cells in the E- and PE-phases, respectively. The cells were pelleted by centrifugation at 18 000 g for 10 min. The culture supernatant was then filtered through a membrane with 0.2-μm pores (VWR, sterile syringe filter) to exclude bacterial cells, but include parts of the OMV that have a diameter of 186±83 nm (Fernandez-Moreira et al., 2006). To determine whether inhibitory activity was mediated only by OMV or also by LPS species <300 kDa, these two fractions were prepared by Vivaspin filtration with an exclusion size of 300 kDa (Vivascience, Sartorius Group, Stonehouse, UK). For this culture, supernatants were centrifuged

at 200 g until the volume of fractions >300 kDa was reduced to 10% v/v. In the following details, we refer to the fraction >300 kDa MG-132 in vivo as OMV and the filtrate as LPS species <300 kDa. Quantification of LPS in the fractions was not carried out. The comparison between LPS fractions of both strains derived from the E- and the PE-phases was still ensured on the basis of bacterial ability to shed LPS in the corresponding liquid cultures. For this,

the volume of the OMV fractions was refilled with YE broth to the same volume as the LPS fractions <300 kDa in order to avoid a concentration step of OMV. Using this step, the Meloxicam concentration of shed LPS components in the broth reflects simultaneously the accumulated LPS during the growth phases depending on the strains. Subsequently, 2 × 106 MAb-coated beads were added to 1 mL of the LPS fractions and incubated at 37 °C on an orbital shaker for 90 min at 150 r.p.m., then washed once with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing 40 μg BSA mL−1 and centrifuged at 10 000 g for 3 min. After removal of the supernatant, the beads were resuspended with 100 μL PBS containing 40 μg BSA mL−1 and used for phagocytosis experiments. To label lysosomes by endocytosis, host cells were incubated at 37 °C for 1 h with fluorescein-dextran with a molecular weight of 10 000 (FDx) as described elsewhere (Fernandez-Moreira et al., 2006). Acanthamoeba castellanii was stained with 4 mg anionic FDx (Invitrogen, Karlsruhe, Germany) per milliliter PYG 712 and monocytic cells with 5 mg anionic lysine fixable FDx (Invitrogen) per milliliter RPMI containing 10% v/v FCS.