Fig. 5. Increased vaginal clearance of GBS and restriction of uterine ascension in ^HMbmice is not due to ^hmCST or cytokine levels, but may be attributed to individual taxa.

a ^HMbmice (HMb) and conventional (Conv) mice were vaginally inoculated with 10⁷ CFU of GBS (n = 10−27). b GBS CFU recovered from daily vaginal swabs. Vaginal, cervical, and uterine GBS tissue burdens were collected at (c) day 3 and (d) day 7 post-inoculation. MIP-2 cytokine levels quantified in (e) day 2 vaginal swabs and (f) day 7 uterine tissue homogenates, and (g) IL-17 quantified in day 7 Uterine homogenates. GBS CFU counts from (h) day 2 swabs, (i) day 7 swabs, and (j) combined day 3 and 7 uterine tissues delineated by ^hmCST assignment of respective mice on day 0 prior to GBS inoculation. Relative abundances of vaginal (k) Escherichia, (l) Lactobacillus gasseri, (m) Acinetobacter, and (n) Pseudomonas across all vaginal swabs in mice grouped into detectable uterine GBS (GBS + ) or no detectable uterine GBS (GBS-) at the time of tissue collection. Symbols represent unique swab or tissue samples with median and interquartile ranges. Data were statistically analyzed by Mann−Whitney test (e−g, k−n) with corrections for multiple comparisons using the two-stage linear step-up procedure of Benjamini, Krieger and Yekutieli and a false discovery rate (<0.05) for (b−b), or Kruskal-Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparison test (h−j). Statistically significant P values are reported. Adjusted P values < 0.1 are reported for b−d. Schematic (a) was created with BioRender.com.