Beyond the Colony-Forming-Unit: Rapid Bacterial Evaluation in Osteomyelitis

Examination of bacteria/host cell interactions is important for understanding the aetiology of many infectious diseases. The colony-forming-unit (CFU) has been the standard for quantifying bacterial burden for the past century, however, this suffers from low sensitivity and is dependent on bacterial culturability in vitro . Our data demonstrate the discrepancy between the CFU and bacterial genome copy number in an osteomyelitis-relevant co-culture system and we confirm diagnosis and quantify bacterial load in clinical bone specimens. This study provides an improved workflow for the quantification of bacterial burden in such cases. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.