Figure 1. Evaluation of 7 plasmid-regulated antigens for inducing protective immunity against C. muridaum intravaginal infection.

(A) Groups of female Balb/c mice with 5/each were immunized intramuscularly with three doses of corresponding antigens plus adjuvant (CpG+IFA) as indicated in the figure. One month following the final immunization, mice were challenged intravaginally with 2×10⁴ IFUs of C. muridarum organisms. Vaginal swabs were taken weekly as indicated along the x-axis for measuring the number of live organisms (IFUs). The IFUs from each swab was converted into Log10, and the log10 IFUs were used to calculate mean and standard deviation for each mouse group as displayed along the y-axis. The log10 IFUs were compared between 9 groups of mice at each time point using ANOVA test, followed by a two-tailed Student's t-test for comparing between the GST control group and a test antigen group. ** indicates p<0.01 while *, p<0.05. Although three antigen groups (TC0075, TC0419 & TC0519 or GlgP) displayed significant reduction in live organism shedding, only the GlgP-immunized group maintains a statistic difference after correcting multiple group comparison. (B) Number of mice with detectable infectious units (IFUs) from each group and at each time point was listed. The rates of IFU positivity were compared between the GST control and a test group using the Fisher's exact test. * indicates p<0.05. Three of the 5 mice immunized with GlgP cleared infection on day 14 post infection.