Figure 5. C. elegans challenged with P. aeruginosa PA14 are short-lived relative to animals challenged with E. coli OP50 in both colonized and uncolonized subgroups.

C. elegans harboring colonies are substantially shorter lived than animals without colonies in both populations challenges with (a) GFP-labeled E. coli OP50 (p < 0.001, log rank test) and (b) mScarlet-labeled P. aeruginosa PA14 (p < 0.001, log rank test). (c) Lifespan of P. aeruginosa challenged C. elegans is significantly shorter than that of E. coli challenged animals in both colonized (p < 0.001, log rank test) and uncolonized (p < 0.001, log rank test) subpopulations. The time between initial detection of a colony and death of the animal trended lower but was not significantly different between animals with colonies that were detected late (day 3 or later post challenge) vs. early (day 1 or 2 post-challenge) for both animals challenged with (d) E. coli (p = 0.061, two-side Welch’s t test) and (e) P. aeruginosa (p = 0.11, two-side Welch’s t test). For C. elegans harboring an E. coli colony, the area of the colony on a given day (f) was not significantly associated with remaining lifespan for animals challenged with E. coli (p = 0.97, linear regression), but (g) was significantly and negatively associated with remaining lifespan for animals challenged with P. aeruginosa (p < 0.01, linear regression) animals. Each point represents one animal on one day. For violin plots, center bar or white point represent median, boxes represent upper and lower quartile, whiskers represent the 5^th and 95^th percentile, and points indicate outliers. Sample sizes: E. coli OP50, N_colonized = 40, N_uncolonized = 233, N_total = 273; P. aeruginosa PA14, N_colonized = 147, N_uncolonized = 127, N_total = 247. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, n.s. = not significant for indicated statistical test.