L. plantarum or C. difficilecounts (CFU log10/ml median (range) at different incubation times     0 h 10 h 24 h 48 h L. plantarumn=5 Control: LP growth alone 6.0 (5.2-6.3) 7.7 (6.3-9.0) 8.2 (8.0-10.3) 7.0 (6.0-8.5) Co-culture: LP growth with CD 5.8 (5.0-7.8) 7.8 (6.0-9.6) 8.3 (7.0-11.0) 7.1 (6.0-9.0) C. difficilen=14 Control: CD growth alone 4.1 (2.0-6.0) 6.7 (3.7-8.6) 5.0* (4.0-9.0) 7.0# (5.8-8.1) Co-culture: CD growth with LP 4.0 (2.0-6.3) 5.0 (2.0-9.3) 2.0* (2.0-6.5) 3.0# (2.0-7.1)

Table 1: Growh of L. plantarum and C. difficle strains in different conditions (alone and co-culture) at different incubation times. CD - C. difficile ; LP - L. plantarum. *p=0.058; #p=0.01