FIG. 2.

A vulvaless C. elegans strain is resistant to TAN 31504-mediated infection of the uterus and does not exhibit an enhanced host mortality rate. (A) Bright-field micrograph of TAN 31504-infected Glp adult wild-type and vulvaless lin-10(n1390) worms (left and right, respectively) taken 5 days after exposure to pathogen at 25°C (×100 magnification). The gray arrowhead points to the vulva-uterus region of the wild-type worm. The black arrowhead points to the most anterior region of the lin-10(n1390) worm intestine. Accumulation of the yellow-pigmented pathogen (represented here in off-white) within the uterine and intestinal lumens of the wild-type and lin-10(n1390) worms, respectively, was observed. Distention of the lumen of the respective tissues was seen and is indicated by the arrowheads. Magnified color images of the infected worms are shown in Fig. S2 in the supplemental material. (B) Survival curves of Glp adult wild-type (Wt; black curves) and vulvaless lin-10(n1390) (gray curves) worms exposed to TAN 31504 (thick lines) and E. faecalis V583 (thin lines) at 25°C. Curves are represented as a fraction of survivors over time. The vulvaless strain exhibited significant resistance (log rank, P < 0.0001) to TAN 31504-mediated killing compared to wild-type (LT_mean = 236.4 ± 9.5 h versus 137.1 ± 4.3 h, respectively), while displaying increased sensitivity (log rank, P = 0.0003) to V583 pathogenesis (LT_mean = 185.5 ± 4.8 h versus 210.3 ± 4.5 h, respectively).