Fig. 8.

TLR4 controls infection bottlenecks and limits E. coli replication. (A) E. coli hepatic CFU burden from TLR4^Het and TLR4^KO (same animals in Fig. 7D but represented per ¼ liver for appropriate comparisons to FP sizes). (B) TLR4^KO mice have higher E. coli FP sizes compared to TLR4^Het. (C) Measurement of net bacterial expansion (CFU per founder) indicates that abscesses (blue) contain a markedly expanded E. coli population. E. coli in TLR4^KO animals undergo more expansion compared to littermate controls that fail to form abscesses (black). (D) Similar GDs between liver and spleen E. coli populations suggest that systemic dissemination is minimal and not influenced by TLR4. P values were derived from Mann–Whitney U tests and P < 0.05 was used to determine statistical significance.