FIG. 3.

(A) Quantification of P. aeruginosa strain PA01 bacteria recovered from epithelial cells grown with and without Matrigel at 3 and 5 h postinfection. Matrigel-grown cells showed a greater retention of P. aeruginosa than cells alone at 3 h (*, P < 0.001, t test). By 5 h postinfection, the difference in bacterial retention was not seen (P > 0.05, t test). (B) Matrigel-coated filters without cells also showed retention of bacteria compared to uncoated filters at 3 and 5 h postinfection (*, P ≤ 0.02, t test) (viable count data were normalized to filters alone). For each time point, viable count data were normalized to data for uncoated filters (i.e., bacteria retained by the filter without cells or Matrigel).