FIG. 4.

Vegetations on rabbit aortic valves. (A) Aortic valve of a rabbit infected with the central aggregation domain insertion mutant [OG1SSp(pCF10-1)]. The aortic valve is composed of three cup-shaped leaflets, as indicated by the box. The bacterial load of the vegetation removed was 1.50 × 10¹ CFU. The majority of the vegetation is on the right leaflet (indicated by the arrow). (B) Aortic valve of a rabbit infected with an N-terminal single RGDS mutant [OG1SSp(pCF10-3)]. The valves exhibit no apparent vegetations, and the vegetation bacterial load was 5.30 × 10³ CFU. (C) Aortic valve of a rabbit infected with an Asc10⁻ plasmid-free strain (OG1SSp), with one vegetation in the center leaflet (arrow). The vegetation bacterial load was 2.40 × 10⁷ CFU.