FIG. 5.

Blood clearance of BG7322 (A) and TIGR4 (B) combined with erythrocytes. Pneumococci were opsonized with WT mouse serum, followed by incubation with WT or CR1⁺ murine erythrocytes. A mixture containing 2 × 10⁵ bacteria and 5 × 10⁶ erythrocytes (E) was injected i.v. into WT mice (n = 5). Blood was drawn at different time intervals to evaluate the bacterial clearance. The asterisk indicates that BG7322 or TIGR4 combined with CR1⁺ mouse erythrocytes was cleared from blood significantly faster than when combined with WT mouse erythrocytes (P = 0.006 [A] and P = 0.02 [B] by a Student's two-tailed t test). Error bars indicate the standard errors of the means (SEM).