FIG. 3.

Recovery of S. epidermidis 1457 and its isogenic PIA/HA-negative mutant 1457-M10 from implanted subcutaneous catheter segments in the mouse foreign body infection model. There were significantly greater numbers of strain 1457 adherent to the catheters compared to strain 1457-M10 at both the 10⁶ and 10⁷ CFU inoculum levels. Although there were fewer bacteria recovered from the catheters of mice inoculated with 10⁸ CFU of S. epidermidis 1457-M10 than from the catheters of mice inoculated with either 10⁷ or 10⁶ CFU of S. epidermidis 1457, these differences did not reach statistical significance. Bars represent the mean of log-transformed adherence values, and the lines represent the standard error of the mean. cath, catheter.