Fig. 2

Tavaborole boosts the efficacy of AGAs against MDR E. coli. a Antibiotics library combination screening. Synergistic antibiotics are indicated by a red star. b Microdilution tests between Tava and AMK or TOB on a checkerboard. Dark-red regions represent higher bacteria loading and lower growth-inhibition capacity. The X- and Y-axes were both set to log2 scale. c FIC plot for AMK or TOB in conjunction with tavaborole. The additive impact is represented by the dotted line. The point utilized to calculate FICI is indicated by black arrows. d Changes in MICs against clinical MDR E. coli infections between TOB therapy (blue line) and TOB plus 1/2 ×MIC Tava treatment (orange line). The log2-transformed is shown on the radial axis. Breakpoint (4 g/ml) is indicated by the grey thick line. e The FICI are calculated in partial clinical isolates. f Checkerboard dilution method of tavaborole combined with AMK against K. pneumoniae ATCC 700,603, and with TOB against P. aeruginosa PAO1 and A. baumannii ATCC 19,606. Three biological replicates are used in each experiment. Synergy is defined as an FIC index of ≤ 0.5