FIG. 1.

Mucosal SEA administration protects against SEA-induced death. Mice were given SEA, rSEA, or OVA i.n. three times 1 week apart and challenged i.p. with SEA-LPS 1 week later. Data are expressed as survival of OVA-tolerized (▪), rSEA-tolerized (▵), and SEA-tolerized (□) C57BL/6 (a) and BALB/c (b) mice during the first 70 h post-SEA challenge. Mice that had been tolerized i.n. with SEA were not protected from a lethal i.p. challenge with TSST-1-LPS (○). All experiments were performed twice with groups of 10 mice. Statistical significance for comparison to OVA-tolerized animals: ∗∗, P < 0.01; ∗∗∗, P < 0.001.