Fig. 5. Heterogeneous pneumococcal capsule production is beneficial for in vivo colonization compared to homogenous capsule expression.
a Four-day-old mouse pups were inoculated intranasally with 105 CFU of pneumococci and after 24 h sacrificed and bacterial loads were enumerated in nasal lavages. There was no statistically significant difference between wild type and the CAPSUlator strain, while all other GRNs (CAPSUlator-Δcps, CAPSUlator-OFF, CAPSUlator-ON) colonized worse than the CAPSUlator (Mann–Whitney test). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (n > 3, each symbol represents a biologically independent replicate). Source data are provided as a Source Data file. b Conceptual model of the different phenotypes driven by the CAPSUlator GRN and their biological advantages and disadvantages.