1. Comparison of C. muridarum organisms with or without a deficiency in pGP3 for their ability to induce hydrosalpinx in the upper genital tract and spread to the gastrointestinal tract following intrabursal inoculation.
Comparison of C. muridarum organisms with or without a deficiency in pGP3 for their ability to induce hydrosalpinx in the upper genital tract and spread to the gastrointestinal tract following intrabursal inoculation. C. muridarum organisms with the complete plasmid (CM-pGFP, n = 6) (a) or deficient in pGP3 (CM-pgp3S, n = 5) (b) were inoculated intrabursally into the oviducts of C57BL/6J mice at 2 × 105 IFU per mouse. At various time points postinoculation, as indicated along the x axis, both vaginal (a and b) and rectal (a1 and b1) swab specimens were taken for titration of C. muridarum live organisms. The numbers of live organisms recovered from the swab specimens were expressed as the log10 number of IFU per swab specimen, as displayed along the y axis. On day 63, all mice were sacrificed for observation of the hydrosalpinx pathology, as listed on the right. Note that C. muridarum organisms deficient in pGP3 were significantly attenuated in their ability to induce pathology in the upper genital tract and failed to spread to the GI tract. *, P < 0.05 (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, area under the curve, for shedding courses; hydrosalpinx score for pathology); #, P > 0.05 (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, area under the curve, for shedding courses and Fisher's exact test for hydrosalpinx rates; the lack of a significant difference was probably due to the limited sample size).
Lili Shao et al. Infect. Immun. 2018; doi: /IAI